Suicide Slums (Black Lightning)
by shenandoahok
Summary: Nick Ryan owns and runs an apartment complex while grappling with raising his biracial Asian son, forming alliances with the Guardian, and assisting Black Lightning in protecting Suicide Slums.
1. Chapter 1

Suicide Slums

"South Side!" The young, miscreants who called themselves the One Hundred screamed as they walked down Main Street in the Suicide Slums of Metropolis. Ten years ago they didn't have any powers or weight behind their misdeeds, but not today; they've changed the entire game in the dilapidated side of town. I had never seen a gang like the One Hundred in all my days. Often, I wondered if Superman would take time out of his busy schedule to stop the violence, drugs, and corrupt politicians infecting the slums, but he hadn't tried yet. In fact, I'm not sure if he ever took the time to fly over the blighted area

The One Hundred wore their long, black trench coats with lengthy, dirty brown dreadlocks. I could see the gun bulges on their right hips. It was like they weren't trying to hide their weapons. I sat on the steps of my apartment building, Towering Heights, and watched the hoodlums as they meandered down the street. After the gun turn-in happened the previous week, I thought the cops took most of the weapons out of the neighborhood. I helped organize the guns for rent buyback, but it was only for one month of rent. Most of the other apartment building owners participated in the exchange, and I felt good about that. It wasn't the first time that I organized some kind of gun buyback, but it was only a week later, and I think more guns bled into the streets than in the three previous years combined.

Leroy Johnson rode his odd shaped bicycle down the avenue. His large afro poofed out in all directions, and he wore wide, black sunglasses that extended past his shoulders. Often, he was short on salutations, but not today for some reason. His bike had a large front wheel and a small back wheel. It was a silly looking, pedal driven thing that made me laugh when I saw him. Leroy was about twenty-one years old, but as far as I could tell, he was a pretty good guy. "Mister Ryan, how are you doing today?" Leroy asked as he rode past my apartment complex.

"Pretty good, Leroy," I said. "What's with the long ass greeting?"

"I have a job interview tomorrow," he said, "I thought I should sophisticate my greeting."

I smiled. "It can't hurt, son."

Misses Jenkin's kids played a game of jacks next to the stairway, and I looked on without any care at all. More often than not, she had her kids roaming up and down the slums without any guidance at all. She suffered from depression and hopped from one sordid relationship to the next. Tyrese was her oldest boy, and I think he was transgender. She had him wearing girl clothes, and I didn't understand the reason unless he was transgender. I was born in nineteen eighty-five, and I looked at the world differently. In addition, I came from a well-to-do, metahuman enriched black family who followed a stringent set of rules, but I've tried to live an inconspicuous life. That meant absolutely no dating outside of my race whatsoever. When I turned twenty, I was in my third year at the University. I announced to my father that I planned on marrying an Asian girl named Sue Tran. A lot of my so-called friends clowned me when I announced Sue and I would marry because she was an ordinary, right-off-the-boat Asian girl with absolutely no flare. She was a Rocket Scientist. She was part of my study group in advance, Calculus for Physics Students. She was so plain that she often asked questions like, "Do I need to wear a dress? Is makeup needed for this event?" In fact, I gave her a book of sexually explicit Calculus problems after our first study session. When she finished with the book, which was about a week later, we sat at Pho Noodles in Little Africa on an urban side of town in National City. She wore her hair approximately shoulder length at the time, almond-shaped eyes, puffy cheeks, and innocent looking. Her beige clothes were utilitarian in nature. She wore a shirt similar to something a Game Warden would wear: two chest pockets, military design, and everything had a purpose. She had a beige dress that hung past her knees. It was close to the high school uniform she wore back in Vietnam.

"What are you getting?" I asked as she looked at the menu. She had it held all the way up to her face.

She looked over the top of the menu, and said, "I'm going for the Hu Tieu Nam Vang. I love that."

I smiled at her because I knew what she was trying to do. For the American palate, the Hu Tieu Nam Vang tasted like a bowl full of pig butts. I knew of the dish because Pho Noodles wasn't my first time in the Asian jungle. I had tried every dish on the menu by the time I turned sixteen, the same year I graduated from high school. I didn't wake up one day and start dating Asian girls. I always had to do it on the down-low because my father would disown me if he found out my thirst. But when Sue ordered the Hu Tieu Nam Vang, I assumed she wanted to turn me off. I just had that feeling.

"I'm getting the Pork Baguette," I said, "Do you want to share some Pork Spring Rolls?"

"Okay," she said.

I was only seventeen at the time, a wealthy black kid from Metropolis who rode into National City University as a legacy. When the waitress, a slender well-rounded Asian woman, named Veronica Le dropped off the Spring Rolls and drinks, she gave me an awful stare. She wore a lot of makeup, thin, and I could tell she spent a lot of time in the gym because she had chiseled abs like a washboard. All the waitresses dressed like they worked in strip clubs after hours, and do to my sleek, black Porsche, the ladies-regardless of looks-gave me more attention than I deserved.

"I'm going to wash my hands," I said as I smiled at Sue. With the cola in her hand, she took a sip and then set it back on the table.

"Okay," she said.

When I bounced over to the bathrooms, Veronica shoved my left shoulder from behind. I turned around to see who pushed me, and then she said, "Is that your girlfriend?" She was probably only five-foot-one, and she scowled at me like I did something to her personally.

"She will be soon," I said with a smile.

"You're kidding, right? That plain Jane, square looking nerd is what you go for?" She asked. I almost laughed as she stood in front of me emotionless. She put her arms akimbo and tilted her head to the left side.

"Yes," I said as I ran into the bathroom, washed my hands, and then dried them in the blower. I almost expected people to act that way because of my choices in women. I thought she was a tad bold to confront me in the middle of the eatery like that, especially when Sue sat only a few seats away. People often hated my choices in women, but their opinions didn't matter to me. When a tall, in-shape black man with money, a nice car, and his own apartment doesn't go for the CoverGirl, everybody hates him. When I sat back down, the other waitress gave us our food and slipped me a note.

"You sick, nigga!" The note said. I knew it was from Veronica, and she was upset because I wasn't chasing her. It was obvious. "You could have me, but you're too busy chasing a FOB." I balled up the note, put it in my side pocket, and pretty much erased her nonsense from my mind. I really didn't have time for her shenanigans in the first place.

Sue took one of the tender Spring Rolls, dipped it into the sweet peanut sauce, and stuffed the tip of it into her mouth. It made a crunching noise as she chewed into the lettuce filled wrap. "This is really good," she said with a smile. She wore some of the peanut sauce on her face, but I didn't mind. I just wanted her to enjoy her meal. She then put some bean sprouts into her soup, sucked on the noodles loudly, and smiled at me as half her food hung out her mouth. She was being messy as a way to turn me off, but I was laughing on the inside. She was eating with her mouth open, and then when Veronica strolled by the table from around the corner, she said aloud, "Oh my fucking gawd!"

"Sue?" I said.

"Yeah," she said with a mouth full of food.

"I know what you're doing," I said, "The Calculus problems were probably over the top, but I do like you."

She dropped her chopsticks and looked down at the table. She pushed her glasses up on her face, and said, "Why?"

"Yeah, why?" Veronica said from around the corner.

"Why not?" I said. "Mind your business, Veronica."

She shimmeyed her way out of the booth and turned around in front of me. "I'm frumpy. I'm a FOB. I'm contrary to everything somebody like you should desire."

"And you know what I should desire?" I asked. "How presumptuous!" I looked at her for a moment, and said, "Well, you're going to either be my girlfriend or you're not going to be my girlfriend," I said. "It's really that simple."

I brought her family to the United States to see us marry, and nobody from my side of the family came to the wedding. In fact, by the time we signed the marriage certificate, my father completely cut me out of the will and tried to starve me so I'd divorce Sue. By the time we graduated from college with our Master degrees, we were completely broke. I was twenty-three and Sue was twenty-four and pregnant. I had a mountain full of college debt, and about two thousand dollars in cash. We loaded up the Porsche, drove back to Metropolis, and I begged my father to lend me some money, but he refused to do so.

Sue and I found the High Tower Apartments, and I sat up my little computer in the living room. She was only three months pregnant at the time and immediately found a job at the Vietnamese Eatery at the end of Main Street. I parked my black, desk chair in front of my computer, and wrote a novel called, "My Little Asian Girl." It was basically about Sue, and how she saved my soul. I spent every hour of every day for two months to write that novel. I barely touched Sue. When I finished the book, I realized I had become estranged from her. I sent the book to an Asian book publisher, and they printed it, but it only sold two hundred copies in the United States.

"You had the world, Nick Ryan," she said as she stood in front me, "You failed as a son, as a husband, and now a novelist."

At the time, we didn't have anything. She had a lot more than I did though. She stood by the coffee table with her suitcase, seven months pregnant, and divorce papers. She set the papers on the coffee table, and I cried in front of her. Slowly, I walked over to the papers, and she didn't want anything from me except her freedom. "Don't you want half my income?" I asked.

She burst out into laughter. It was a cruel laugh. "Nick, you have nothing," she said. "My brother lives in Gotham. It's time for me to leave. Find your dignity."

I brought her suitcase down the stairs, and I begged her not to go, but she wasn't listening. She stood outside the apartment complex as I sat on the steps watching her. She turned around, looked me directly in my face, and stared at me for what seemed like hours. "Can we not go back to what we had?"

She shook her head in disagreement. And when her brother pulled up in his SUV, she disappeared from my life for a long while.

When I walked back up the stairs, I dragged my feet. I thought, _I barely have two dimes to rub together. Everything I've touched has turned to shit_. I thought about diving out the bedroom window of my cozy apartment onto into the middle of the street. I even walked over to the window, but the phone kept ringing in the background. I hated that phone. It sat on the nightstand next to my side of the bed. I only imagined it was some bill collector on the other end reminding me that my life was a complete and utter failure. I eventually ran out the apartment building, walked down the street, and then when I walked into the Asian Eatery, a sixteen-year-old Korean girl walked up to me with an enormous smile on her face. She wore braces on her top teeth, glasses, and a ponytail.

"Mister Ryan, can you sign my book?" She asked softly. She held the book up to her chest.

"Yes," I said.

"You're an amazing writer," she said, "All the FOBs love your book. You make us beautiful."

She hugged me and then walked out of the restaurant. It caught me off guard because I didn't expect that kind of reaction to the book.

I purchased a Pork sandwich, consumed it, and then walked back home. I heard some gunfire coming from a few blocks over, but I didn't think anything about it. When I returned to my apartment, I checked the mail and received an official-looking letter. It was an envelope from my publishing company. The envelope had been opened and then resealed. At the time, I didn't think too much about the tattered package. I didn't think it would be much of anything if anything at all. It was an actual check for nearly five million dollars. I gasped. When I contacted my publisher, he said he had been trying to contact me all week. For some reason, the book took off in China, Japan, Vietnam, and parts of Russia and a few other Asian countries.

"You're like the FOBs' dream," he told me. "You've created a masterpiece that gave them pride."

For hours, I sat at the dinner table, held the check in my right hand, and stared at it in disbelief. I thought about calling Sue, but she didn't leave a telephone number. I always had my father's money until he cut me off, and now that I had the gratuity check, it seemed so little without Sue. But at the same time, she made the choice to leave me. My thoughts fluttered from one idea to the next like the wings of a hummingbird, and I tried to close the door on the chapter in my life that dealt with her, but it was hard. At the moment, I didn't have a clear grasp on why she left.

After I finished my first book tour, I made an additional two million dollars. I sent Sue six thousand dollars the next day, and she returned the money to me in a letter. She also told me to never contact her again. Due to the fact it was a certified letter, I obeyed to a certain degree. I quickly closed the book on that relationship but didn't start dating because I spent a considerable amount of time fighting Sue in a court of law for the custody of Tong Ryan, my son.

My father, Doctor Demetrius Ryan, gave me my share of Ryan Corp, but due to my past racial transgressions, I didn't have a say in the inner workings of the company. I split the money up into twenty-four different banks around the globe but decided to remain in the slums to be closer to people who resembled me. My father's metahuman powers dealt with mind manipulation, telepathy, telekinesis, and he was able to bring together the right minds and built his corporation. I had similar metahuman abilities including strength, flight, and speed, and even though I had a vast amount of training, I shelved my gifts after I left National City University. Up until I left for the University, I trained privately with the Deceptions, a highly secretive clan of mind manipulators.

I purchased my apartment complex at the age of twenty-seven, and then wrote another novel loosely based on Sue called, "She Broke Me." That novel sold millions of copies overseas, and I made twenty-five million dollars from it. Thong was ten-years-old and attended a Catholic school called Saint Michaels. We didn't know what happened to Sue. I believed she resided in Gotham, but I never stayed in contact once I had full custody of my son. I hadn't seen her in nearly five years.

Now that I'm thirty-three-years old, and I see a young boy dressed like a girl, I find it kind of confusing. Goodwill had clothes for the boy. There was no reason to put him in a dress unless he was trans, and it just meant he had a hard life ahead of him. Suicide Slums preyed on the weak, and when it came to the LGBT Community, there wasn't an overtly weak one in the group. Suddenly, I heard some gunfire emanating from around the corner. I grabbed the kids, pulled them into the house, and the oldest one had a few words for me.

"Mister Ryan, I'm not afraid of no gunfire," Tyrese said as he stood in front of me in his dress. "I'll be dead before I'm twenty-one, anyway."

 _He was probably right_ I thought because a multitude of outside sources snuffed out black lives on the daily. At first, I thought the box of guns found in a dark alley was a myth or local folklore. The Gotham slums had their box of gun stories and so did Little Africa. Suicide Slums, also, had their box of guns in an alley story. I think every black enclave had a story about a stash of guns appearing in the middle of some alley. But one day, about two years ago, I watched several white men wearing black suits drop a box of guns in the alley behind my apartment complex. When they drove off, I immediately ran over to the box, opened it, and saw a plethora of weapons. I tried my best to understand the reasoning behind the stash of weapons, but it always brought me to a dark place mentally. I had those guns inventoried, and sent to the Metropolis Police Department. Unfortunately, the same guns made their way back onto the streets of Suicide Slums.

When I walked back outside, I heard several women screaming. I ran towards the panicking women and saw two, well dressed black ladies crying over a black, male teenager. One of the women wore a red blouse, a short fro, and appeared to be a professional woman. The other lady had a black dress, long, black hair, and dark skin. I looked down at the boy for a moment, and It looked like he took a bullet in his stomach, and when I came upon the scene, the women were performing CPR. "He just died!" The woman in red said. He didn't look older than fourteen, but I couldn't tell. She looked back at me, and said, "Can he not hear our cries? Do we not matter to him?"

"It doesn't matter," the lady in black said, "Superman will never take time out of his busy schedule to help us." I could tell the entire situation stressed her.

I looked at them lamenting over their dead son. The boy's blood-drenched their clothes. I tried to think of something uplifting to say. I knelt beside the boy's body, and said, "We can't wait for Superman to recognize our humanity. We have to stop the violence on our own."

"I called the ambulance nearly thirty minutes ago," one of the ladies said. "He was still alive then."

"Do you have a clue who pulled the trigger?" I asked.

"No," the woman in red said. "They're killing us."

I placed the back of my right hand against the boy's left temple. For at least three days after death, I could extract memories from a dead body. I went into the child's mind and saw him buying some soda pop and candy from Big Pops. When he walked out into the middle of the street, a fast-moving, white-hot car pulled up to him, and put a bullet into his stomach. The perpetrator looked like a member of the Blasian Knights, an organized gang of Asian and black mixed hoodlums of all calibers.

"It was most likely the Blasian Knights," I said softly.

"BKs?" The lady in black asked. "But why?"

I looked over at the ladies crying, and then the lady in red whispered into the other woman's ear. I don't know what they said, but after that, nobody said another word about the Blasian Knights.

It took the ambulance forty-five minutes to arrive on the scene, and I looked at the men with utter disgust. Their lackadaisical attitudes rubbed me the wrong way. It was like they didn't care their tardiness caused the teen's death. "You could have saved him if you had arrived sooner," I said with a scowl on my face.

"Yeah! Yeah!" One of the paramedics said with a smirk on his face. Out of nowhere, the woman in red pulled out a gun, shot the paramedic in the head, and then gunned down the second one. He tried to run, but she shot him in the back. It happened so fast that I didn't know what to make of it. She began screaming, and then all I heard was a series of gunshots. She then turned the gun on herself, and the other woman screamed so loud that I thought my ears would bleed. I found that moment in time most disturbing because if I had been paying attention, I could have used my metahuman powers to persuade her. For thousands of years, telepaths and empaths have used their abilities to change humankind. That was not the case now.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

It was the summer of twenty ten when Sue opened up her little, Asian bistro about a mile down the road from my apartment complex, Towering Heights. She opened it up under a cloak of darkness because she had it in her brother's name, Vincent Do Tran, for some reason. I didn't know why she set up her business under her brother's name, and what made matters worse, I didn't know why I cared. The only reason I knew she owned the business was that I recognized her brother's name, Vincent Do Tran, in the city's books because I was looking at the property for an African Bistro. When they moved into the facility, I watched them from across the street, and I recognized Sue immediately. She called the newly minted business, "Sue's Bistro."

When Sue opened her business, Thong turned two-years-old, and since I won full custody from her, she didn't want any part of his life. In fact, she gave up all her parental rights without any cajoling. I didn't ask her to forfeit her parental rights, but during the short trial, her lawyer argued she didn't want anything to do with our baby or me. I was flabbergasted. I looked at her across the table, and all she did was stare at the ground. For a moment, I saw her as inhuman for completely giving up her rights to Thong. I was incredulous, in a state of utter shock. I loved the fact that I had full custody of my boy, but at the same time, I hated the fact that Sue didn't think he was worth the fight. I hated that I would have to raise him without her. I didn't understand why she would leave without explanation.

Since I won full custody of my son, Sue never approached me about visitation. We had a brief conversation right before the litigation, and I asked her why she didn't care for us, but she only scowled at me after striking me across the face. We stood outside of the courtroom on either sides of the main entrance. I had a fleet of attorneys by my side, and she only had the one, Michael Hicks Burr. She looked empty. I stood up from my seat, walked over to her, and asked, "Why are you doing this to me?"

"The boy is yours," she said with no emotion. "After this, never contact me again."

"Did you ever love me?" I asked. "Did you ever love Thong?" I paused for a moment, and cleared my throat. "Maybe you only loved my money."

She flew out of her chair and smacked me across the face. "You don't know nothing, Nick!" Immediately, her lawyer grabbed her, sat her back down in her chair, and then apologized to me. I looked over at her, and she sobbed out of control for a moment, and to be honest, I enjoyed her moment of pain and dismay. It was like a full-blown musical to my ears, and I felt nothing but catharsis from it. _She left me,_ I thought. If she had stayed with me a few hours longer, we would have cashed my gratuity check together, made love on the rooftop of Towering Heights, and I would have held her hands as she gave birth to our son. I had so many dreams of Sue and I growing old together in the slums. In addition, I planned on opening the small bistro next to my apartment complex for her; it had been vacant for a number of years, and the property was fairly inexpensive in the slums. We could have run it as a family business, Sue and I, and raised a large family with love and understanding.

I knew my father rejected me because I diluted my seed with Sue, an Asian woman. Due to my family's metahuman powers, our wives were selected for us. Metahumans weren't new. We weren't something that had just happened because of the advent of alien genetics into the human race. The Ryan clan's ancestral tree was nearly two hundred thousand years old, and we had ancient text in Central Africa that went back that far. I was destined to marry T'ova Ingra, a dark-skinned woman from Central Africa, but her family called it off with me when they found out Sue and I dated. We were all monitored in every society by the Council of Deceivers, a powerful group of telepaths. The rules on dating outside the race were serious within the clan, and I was never one to listen to my elders. Even if I fell upon the mercy of the family, they would not allow me back into the fold. Since Thong was of mixed heritage, he was considered of the dregs. The same went for me since I mixed my seed with an outsider. Now, according to the bylaws of my tribe, I can never reach the top of the Mind Manipulators that overthrow governments around the world. If not for my father's position in the council, I doubt they'd permit a race mixer like myself to live.

Now, after the lady killed the two paramedics and then committed suicide, I traveled to Metropolis and picked Thong up from school. I gave up my Porsche years earlier and purchased a Jeep so I could live as inconspicuous as possible. I wanted to run a good, clean apartment complex that was free of drugs and criminals, and a healthy place where children could thrive. In my spare time, I wrote love stories for teens on the other side of the world, and it increased my wealth.

As I parked in front of Thong's Catholic school, I was upset because I didn't react fast enough to stop the killings. I'd like to think I wanted to stop the woman from gunning down the two paramedics, and that was where my mind tried to trick me. Deep down, probably somewhere right below the surface, I wanted those men dead. And with my empathic abilities, I picked up on the woman's anger, but I don't think I was in the right frame of mind to stop her. When I walked into my son's school, he met me near the principal's office, and he had been crying. He stood about five foot three, curly black hair, and dark brown skin with almond-shaped eyes.

"What's wrong with you, son?" I asked. I brought him in for a quick hug because I knew he was hurting.

He looked up at me for a moment, and said, "Nobody likes me, father."

"Oh, now," I said, "What have I said about that negative talk?"

"But it's true, daddy," he said, "I can hear their thoughts. The bad ones."

"We'll have to train your mind not to read other people's thoughts," I said. "People think bad thoughts all the time. We all think things we don't mean."

I knew at that moment that he had difficulties understanding the erratic thoughts of other people when he accidentally read their minds. I had the same problem as a child, and for a few years, I grew angry at the world around me. Immediately, I knew I had to start training him in the ways of the Deceptions. I had the training for exactly the same reason years earlier. When we walked out of the school, several images of Sue flashed in my mind for some reason. I thought it a bit strange that I thought about her after so many years apart. For several years, I had stopped thinking about her at all, but when I did, it usually consumed my entire mind. I had been thinking a lot about her lately, and I didn't know why, so I stopped by Sue's Bistro on Second Street. I'm not even sure if Thong would remember his Mama. I didn't talk about her at all.

It was a plain eatery with a few Asian men playing card games on the tables in front of the bistro. There were several empty plates on their table, and two plates of half-eaten Spring Rolls. The sign above the store had a huge bowl of Pho noodle soup with a small, cartoon Asian girl taking a bite. I walked inside with my son, and when Sue saw us, the color drained from her face. Thong didn't recognize her, and she didn't truly acknowledge us as being her family. I looked at her left hand for a ring or an indention of a ring and didn't see anything. In our youth, her hair was completely black, but now she had a few gray hairs peppered about her head. She looked so stressed.

"Come with me," Sue said as she led us to a booth in the rear of her bistro. She didn't seem very enthused about us visiting her soup-house, but that was okay. She looked okay but worn.

"You look familiar," Thong said. "Have we met?"

Sue looked over at me and then at Thong, and asked, "What would you like?"

"But, Miss?" Thong asked.

I bumped his shoulder with my right fist, and said, "Quit. Let this beautiful lady do her job, son." Sue ran off crying, and I realized immediately that I made a mistake, but for some reason, I worried about her. I don't know why she filled my thoughts, but she did. "Stay here, Thong."

I hopped up from my seat, and Sue stood right outside the back door of the restaurant crying. When I walked out the back door, she grabbed her chest, looked up at me, and asked, "Why did you come here, Nick?" She shoved me softly. "You promised me that you'll move on."

"I did," I said.

"No, you haven't," she said, "You haven't found a mother for our boy." She paused for a moment. "You're just spending your wealth on these people, but you're not happy, Nick. I see you walking up and down the street so lonely. Why?"

I looked into her almond-shaped eyes and didn't want to cry, but I did. "I've stayed away from you because I love you. I've spent the last ten years trying to understand why you left. How come you couldn't have left me for another man? Maybe then I could understand all this."

She paused for a moment. "I had to leave."

"If you had given me a few hours, we could have cashed my gratuity check together," I said smiling. "My book restored my wealth. I no longer needed my father's money."

She looked at me with a plain face. "I had already found the check, opened it, and then closed it back up. It wasn't about the money."

"What?" I asked. "I knew it had been opened. Then why did you leave?"

"Your father offered me two million dollars to leave you," she said with a grimace.

"You left me for money?" I asked.

"No," she said, "I turned down the money, and then he told me what he was. He told me what you are. He then manipulated my mind and forced me to hold a gun to my own head. I pulled the trigger, but the gun was empty."

"But you knew about my metahuman powers," I said, "I told you about them."

"Yes," she said, "But you weren't evil about it. You didn't hold a gun to my head. Your father told me to leave you or he'll kill my family."

"I should have known," I said with a grimace. "It all makes sense now." I pointed to her, and she rose off the ground, floated over to me, and then I held her in my arms. "I'm sorry I put you through all of this.

"It is what it is," she said, "But you must protect our boy. Even though I turned down your father's money, he forced the money upon me anyway. I used part of it for this business," she said with a grimace. "The rest of it is for Thong when he finishes college."

"Have you found somebody else?" I asked.

She looked down at my chest, and said, "Yes. This business is my husband," she said laughingly. "It takes care of me, and I take care of it. It keeps me from going mad from losing my family, Nick."

"We can leave the United States," I said, "We have money. We have wealth." Suddenly, Sue fell to the ground screaming. She held on to her head, and her body twisted and convulsed. I grabbed her by the side of her head and entered into her mind. My father stood in the middle of her conscience, and he had a knife in his hand. He was much taller in her mind than I. That meant she feared him more than she feared me.

"Father, why have you done this to us?" I asked with a grimace. "You could just let us be."

"You embarrassed me, boy," he said with a grimace. "You're pathetic."

"Why do you act like we're better than these people?" I asked.

"Why do you act like we're the same as these people?" He said. "We don't water down our seed. We don't mix with the lower lifeforms. Now you have a son who's part Deceiver and part human. What will become of him as he grows into a man? He won't know where his loyalties lie."

"Why are we conversing on Sue's brain?" I asked.

"She's dead, son," he said.

I backed out of her head mentally, and she lay on the ground with her eyes open. Immediately, I pulled out my cell phone, called for an ambulance, and waited. I stood in the middle of the back of the bistro, leaped mentally across the United States, and went directly into my father's conscience. He tried to fight me off, but I was persistent in my attack on his mind.

"Why did you kill her, father?" I asked.

"I didn't," he said, "But we all sensed she was going to succumb to a brain aneurysm. Why do you think you're in her bistro? She called out, and you answered because you care for her."

"Is this the life you would have for your son, father?" I asked. "I wanted to live my life with this woman, and you stole that from me."

"We have laws, Nick," he said.

"I'm taking her to the Lazarus Pit," I said, "She will be my wife in this life."

"Are you mad, son?" He asked. "What goes into the pit is not what comes out of the pit."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Thong and I attended Sue's funeral and we sat in the front row with the immediate family members. I knew my father wouldn't attend the funeral with me because he hated the fact that I married her. He didn't hate her. It wasn't about hate with the Deceivers. It was about not mixing the seed. It was always about not mixing the seed when it came to the pure breeds. My phone beeped in my pocket. I pulled it out so I could turn it off, but an alert about Black Lightning came across the screen. I looked at it quickly, and then turned off my phone. Superheroes and super criminals, both a fixture of Metropolis, was a huge problem for the city's infrastructure. I hoped Black Lightning hadn't returned because when I purchased the Towering Heights, the previous owner told me Black Lightning forced him to replace all the electrical wiring in the building due to his powers.

I'm not sure why Black Lightning was called Black in the first place. In America, most people who call themselves black weren't black in the sense of the pure breeds like myself. In my land, most of the black people would be considered indians or something along that line. My skin was midnight; it was like the black crayon, and then ten shades darker. I stood approximately six-foot-five, wide shoulders, and with a mesmerizing stare. I was so black that when most people saw me they gasped. My race fought in the War of the Gods nearly two hundred thousand years ago, and we were almost wiped out completely. Due to my perfect facial features, I come across to most as a black angel. When people see members of my race, they see beings of grace and strength-and courage.

Thong was only a few shades lighter than me, with almond-shaped eyes and curly hair. He also had wide shoulders. He had my body frame instead of the small, stocky frame of his Mama. Due to his mix heritage, my father would never allow him to set foot on the ancient lands of my people. But my father didn't hate Sue, but race mixing was an egregious act of defiance within the tribe, and it wasn't permitted.

Since Sue died at her bistro, I think she died exactly how she wanted to die. That wasn't necessarily true. She once told me if she died next to me, then she would die happy. When we were in college, after we made love under my dim, study lamp, and while she lay next to me in my bed, she said, "If I died right now, it would go down as the best moment in my life."

I smiled. "I would die from the heartbreak of losing you," I said.

I think she left the Earth exactly how she wanted to leave: on her property and next to me. Once I discussed how much I missed her, I truly believed she loved me when she passed. Her mother and father sat on the very end of the front center pew. I'm sure they hated me on some level for making their daughter miserable. I was always a defiant child. If my father forbade me from something, it meant I had to disobey him. But when it came to Sue, she wasn't a mere breaking of the rules to me, she was my wife and the mother of my son.

I smiled for a moment because I thought how she kept an eye on me as I did her. The One Hundred ruled the streets with an iron fist, and I wanted to make sure none of those boys made their way into Sue's Bistro. I feared the gang would do her harm. Everybody paid protection money to the gang; it was the price of doing business in Suicide Slums. With Superman patrolling Metropolis and the Batman patrolling Gotham, I think the One Hundred chose to stay in the slums. In addition, Supergirl and the Guardian patrolled National City, and two new superheroes, The Vulcan and Miss Sticky, patrolled Little Africa.

If Black Lightning returned to the slums, I'm not sure if he had enough weight to stop the gangs. One of my tenants turned up dead about six months ago after he ripped off a drug dealer named Lala. When the miscreant stormed my apartment complex, I ordered him to leave out of respect for the kids, but he didn't listen. He tried to attack me, but I neutralized him with the power of my mind control. I had to manipulate his mind, and I saw his innermost thoughts. He wanted to dominate the slums, but he feared somebody underneath him would take his throne.

The pallbearers brought Sue's casket into the room, and set it at the very front. Her face looked almost ethereal from where I sat. I imagined she climbed out of the casket, knelt in front of me, and said, "Take me to the Lazarus Pit." I began to sob loudly at the sight of my beautiful wife, and then Thong hugged me. I didn't know seeing her in the casket would have a profound effect on my emotions. I realized she was right about me not moving on from her. Somehow the little glimpses of her passing were enough to suffice. I kept up hope that she'd return to me, and our lives would start where they stopped.

"Oh, Sue. I don't want this world without you," I said loudly. I began to cry out, Misses Tran sat beside me and fanned me as I nearly passed out. I leaned forward, placed my elbows on my knees, and then Thong turned to me.

He whispered into my left ear. "She was my Mama," Thong said softly. "Father, why didn't you tell me?"

I looked over at him, and said, "There's evils in this world, son. Evils that make the One Hundred look like the Boy Scouts. They wouldn't let me tell you about your Mama, but know I loved her very much. And you were born out of that love, son. One day I will tell you all about your beautiful Mama."

We drove to the far end of the slums, and placed Sue in a mausoleum that I had picked for her upon her death. If I hadn't gone against my family's code, my burial place would be in the mountains of Central Africa. But since I mixed my seed, I had no hopes of that. I purchased the mausoleum for Sue after she died so I could be with her in death. It was made in the gothic style, and had my family name written on the front entrance of the building. I don't think money was an issue when it came to our final resting place. It had ten spaces in it for members of my family, and if I planned on having more children, they would be interred in the sepulcher too. When we said our final prayers, the rest of her family left, and then Vincent looked back at me for a moment.

"My sister never stopped loving you, Nick," he said with tears in his eyes.

"I will always cherish the memories we made together," I said. "Your sister was my princess."

After the funeral, I went over to Vincent's house on the edge of the Suicide Slums and Metropolis. His house was where Metropolis ended and the slums began. Most of the houses had metal bars on the windows. I hated living in a neighborhood with security tantamount to a prison. Every house looked fortified, and No Trespassing signs were as common as the blades of grass. A mixture of Asians, blacks, and poor whites lived in the area. The road leading up to his house was freshly paved and smooth. His three-bedroom house had a white picket fence in front of it. It felt bizarre since I lived in the inner city, and all I had surrounding me was more concrete with more concrete. His wife made sure I had a warm beverage, and she was very kind. She gave Thong some hot chocolate, and he told her, "Thank you, ma'am." She was much smaller than Vincent. Her hair grew past her shoulders. She kept a red bow in it. She had a picture of Sue and me in a frame on her wall, and when I looked at the picture, I smiled. It was our wedding photo.

"It's been years since I've seen that photo," I said to Thong as I pointed at the picture.

"She was beautiful," Thong said, "Now I know where I got my eyes."

"It was a happier time," Vincent said. "A much happier time."

Vincent was a heavy set man with a receding hairline, thick eyebrows, and a slight amount of razor stubble. He was a computer programmer in Metropolis, but he wasn't always into computers. When he was a teenager in Vietnam, he ran with a criminal organization called the Cobras. I knew about this because Sue informed me of this back when we were in college. He came to the United States when she was on her third year of school because he stole one hundred thousand dollars from the head of the Cobras. He lived in fear every day of his life that the leader of the Cobras would kill him for his betrayal. "She knew she was dying, Nick," he said. In the background, the television set showed a crude drawing of Black Lightning, and it shocked me. I had heard of him in my early twenties, but I heard he was killed.

"How long did she know?" I asked with a befuddled look on my face. The media said something about a Black Lightning sighting, but that didn't sound feasible. I thought it was a ruse to scare the criminal element in the city.

"They diagnosed her with the tumor last year," he said. "Inoperable."

I didn't know what to make of it. The ceiling fan in the living room blew ever so lightly. The curtains over the windows danced around under the soothing breeze. "What if I told you I can bring her back?" I asked. I just threw it out there for him to think about for a moment.

He looked at me with a look of disgust and disbelief. Thong was sitting on the couch, and he looked over at me too. "Haven't you done enough, Nick?"

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"You've been so selfish in all of this," he said, "You married my sister knowing your family wouldn't approve. A day didn't go by that she didn't live with sadness over not having you. Now, you're telling me you have a way to bring her back from the dead? Is that even possible?"

"Had I known my father scared her away, I would have made all these right years ago. She didn't tell me the reason why she left. She just left. I thought it was because I spent so much time on that damn book," I said, "I should have known my father had gotten to her."

Misses Tran sat in front of me, and asked, "You can bring her back? From the dead?"

"There's a great pool of magic that can restore her life," I said softly, "But…"

"But what?" Vincent asked. "I've heard of this pool from ancient, Chinese literature. I recall it doesn't restore the soul."

"It may or may not restore her soul," I said. "There are actual gods on the earth that might be able to put the soul in her." The television set hummed in the background, and when I looked up at the screen, a news reporter interviewed Bruce Wayne. "Vincent, look?"

"What?" He asked as he looked over at the television set.

"Look at how young Bruce Wayne looks? He looks about forty-years-old."

"He's rich," he said.

"I'm rich," I said, "But when I hit my fifties, I will have to find his fountain of youth." I looked over at Thong for a moment, and then said, "You'll have to care for my boy when I'm gone."

"I don't know if this is a good idea, Nick," he said. "Who is this god you're talking about?"

"I'm not sure," I said, "But I know he's out there." I sat back on the couch for a moment. I didn't want to tell him that I could sense the god's powers, and they were increasing. "I want my wife back, Vincent," I said, "I'm headed to a secret location in the mountains of Switzerland with Sue's body. It'll be a dangerous trek, but I spent most of my summer months in the same mountains growing up. I will have to fight with the assassins to earn the right to dip her in the pit."

"Why?" Misses Tran asked.

"It's the way of the assassins," I said with a grimace. "They protect the Lazarus Pit."

"How can you fight against trained assassins?" Vincent asked. "You don't seem like you can fight."

I laughed. "I'm from a family of trained assassins, Vincent." I stood up for a moment, walked over to my wedding picture, and then said, "I'm a metahuman, but trained with a secret group of assassins like my father did before me and his father did before him."

"You're kidding?" Misses Tran asked.

"I can read your thoughts. Manipulate your mind. I can move things with my mind," I said. I pointed to Thong, and placed him on the other side of the room.

"Oh my," Misses Vincent said, "Did Sue know about your gifts?"

"Yes," I said, "It's because my clan is usually the most dangerous meta-humans on the planet because we move in secrecy. We're choosy about who we let into our fold. My father didn't approve of Sue. He doesn't approve of me using the Lazarus Pit for my own needs, but if I survive the trials, they'll allow me to dip Sue into the magical pool." I walked over to my son, and then said, "Please take care of my boy. Don't ever tell anybody about this conversation. This includes you, Thong. If I don't return, I'm dead. These assassins are the deadliest on the planet. Even with my powerful mind, I may not be able to stop them if they're ordered to kill me."

"Father, will they kill you?" Thong asked.

"No," I said, "I'm part of the assassins, but because I've been gone for so long, they might consider me an outsider now."

Switzerland

It was a simple process transferring Sue's body to Switzerland. I didn't realize how cold it was in the country. I had on a heavy, winter coat, but I didn't think it was enough to keep me warm. I had a switch in the coat that turned on the heater. I walked with the casket outside the airport on some nice wheels. Eventually, I had the casket hovering behind me as I walked down the street. When I was clear of the airport, I took flight with the casket, and it took me about fifteen minutes to arrive into the high mountains. As soon as my feet hit the ground and the casket landed behind me, I felt a throwing star pass my right temple. I could sense one of the assassins about to throw another one, and I was able to deflect it with my telekinesis. When three of the assassins rolled up on me, we engaged in hand to hand combat, and I put one of them on his back. When the other two assassins attacked, I used my metahuman powers, and flipped them off their feet.

Talia walked up to me dressed in her ninja attire. She took off her hood in front of me, and then looked over at the casket. She shook her head in disbelief.

"If I have to fight to put her in the pit, I will, Talia," I snapped.

"You know your father warned us you were on your way," She said with a grimace. "He said you had your dead wife. You better be up on your skills if you want to put her in the pit."

"I haven't asked anything of anybody my entire life, Talia," I said, "I gave up my birthright for this woman. Even after her death, I don't get that back. Let me put her in the pit without any drama."

Talia scoffed at the idea. "No! You'll fight to put her in the pit like everybody else who has requested this. Nobody puts a loved one in the pit without testing their mettle in the arena," she said. "You either fight or carry your black ass back to Suicide Slums."

"You're still a bitch, Talia!" I screamed with anger. She threw a star at my head, and I barely caught it between my index finger and thumb on my right hand.

"You best watch how you talk to me," she said, "'Cause I'm the head bitch in charge here! I won't let you put her in the pit even if you win with that attitude."

I ran up to her, fell to my knees, and grabbed her feet. "I'm broken without her. I've always looked up to you. Please allow me to test my mettle."

"Then you better fight for her, Nick," she said, "It's our way."

The warm temple wasn't very inviting to outsiders like me. I placed Sue's body into my room on the third floor of the temple, and then Talia came by my room, and shared a glass of wine. She wasn't dressed provocatively at all. She wore army pants, black boots, and the olive grab blouse. She talked with a strong, Asian accent, but had symmetrical features, narrow waist, and a nice round bottom. "You remember when your father threw me off the side of the mountain?" I asked calmly.

"That's the price you pay for putting your hands down my pants," she said with an evil smile.

"Yeah. Did he ever find out you started it?" I asked.

She laughed. "He knew. He just wanted to throw you off the mountain." She paused for a moment, walked around to the back of my chair, and rubbed my shoulders for a moment. "I'm not going to stop you from putting Sue in the water if you win," she said calmly. "But you best understand, it restores life. It doesn't restore the soul, Nick. You will mix your blood in a solution, and then pour it down her throat. This means she may inherit some of your metahuman powers."

"Is that such a bad thing?" I asked.

"I don't know," she said with a grimace. "The main issue is she won't have a soul." She took a sip of her wine, and then said, "You've disappointed your father on a whole other level. When we have our training sessions, he discusses you with so much disdain that I can barely listen."

"I mixed my seed," I said. "If he met my son, he'd love him."

"Are you training him?" She asked.

"Not yet," I said.

"Listen. If we aren't training him here, then you must do it at your home," she said, "Regardless of what the council has to say, he still holds untamed power." She walked over to Sue's coffin, opened it, and then said, "When she returns from the pit, it won't be what you expect."

"My father knew I had a crush on you in our youth," I said, "He forbade me from seeing you."

"I know," she said, "Your people have always been separatist as far back as the history goes." She paused for a moment, and smiled. "In those days, I begged my father to talk to your father, but he wouldn't. Besides, I wasn't really your type."

I laughed. "It's true. Sue is exactly what I like."

She looked back at me, and smiled. "Everybody has quirks."

The Arena

Nearly twenty men and women stood around a pit. I was in the middle of the arena without my shirt. Sue's casket was near the Lazarus Pit, and I was in the fighting arena waiting for the first match. Talia talked to me for several hours the previous night about what to expect, and none of the soldiers would take it easy on me. I didn't think they would, but I had to fight to put my wife in the magical water. Two of the warriors beat on a drum, and the other people stood on the outside of the pit. Talia-the leader-walked up to me, and asked if I was ready for the challenge.

"I'm ready, Demon," I said calmly. She was the Demon, an ancient title for the leader of the assassins.

Suddenly, a large warrior dove and rolled towards me so quickly that it caught me off balance. He kicked me in the midsection, and I flew backward. It happened so fast that I didn't have a chance to brace myself. When the warrior charged at me a second time, I flipped over his head, and then kicked him in the face with a round kick. He flew backward, but I didn't try to wrestle him while he was on the ground, at least not at the moment. I allowed him to climb to his feet, take a fighting stance, and then attack me for the third time. He was much larger than me, and it took all my strength to stop his advance. I used his body weight against him, and flipped him over my left shoulder. When he hit the ground, I didn't realize he had a hold of my uniform, and flipped me almost at the same time. I landed flat on my back, and then when I climbed to my feet, another warrior tried to kick me in the back. Immediately, I did a spin kick, and knocked him out cold.

"Control your strength, Nick," Talia said with a grimace. "Remember, you're meta."

"Yes, ma'am," I said calmly. I checked the young man that I kicked, and walked him over to the other side of the arena, and out of the way of the action. I wasn't there to hurt her men, and her men didn't have anything to prove. They were warriors. After twenty-five minutes of fighting with several of her men, she called it.

I was covered in dirt and sweat, but I felt like the first half of the show went well. After that, I took a shower, and came back to the Lazarus Pit in a white robe. Talia stood in front of me, and looked me in my eyes.

"Give me your right hand," she ordered. She had Sue's casket right next to me. When she grabbed my right hand, she cut it with a sharp blade, and I dripped blood into my wife's mouth. "Pick her out of the casket, and walk with her into the water."

"Yes, ma'am," I said. I quickly picked my wife out of the casket, walked her into the water, and held her under for about ten minutes.

"Don't worry, Nick," she said, "It's working."

"Are you sure?" I asked. Suddenly, I saw her open her eyes. I felt her heartbeat. I sensed her conscious mind, and she whispered to me telepathically.

"Are you going to kill me?" She asked telepathically.

When I raised her up out of the water, I looked at her for a moment. The water poured off her head. I placed my hands on her cheeks, and then I kissed her, but she didn't kiss me back.

"Be careful, Nick," Talia said.

Suddenly, Sue kicked me backward, leaped out of the pool, and tried to run. I grabbed her with the power of my mind, and brought her back to the water. I flew out of the water, and she continued to try to run away from me.

"Sue, please. Can you remain calm?" I asked. When I released her from my mental grip, she bent down, looked up at me, and smirk. Out of nowhere, she struck me with an uppercut and I flew back into the water.

"Dammit, Nick," Talia said as she flipped Sue to the ground. "She's going to be hard to control."


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

I stood in the middle of my quaint, little chambers around seven o'clock in the evening. The smell of the lemon incense permeated through the air. Sue lay on my chamber bed completely nude, and her breast had grown over the years. She excited me. Talia sent up several girls to drop off food and for the company while Sue lay on the bed naked and asleep. One of the girls had the kind of body type I liked, and when she reached for my pants, my father entered my mind with his telepathic abilities. It was like a tingle on my frontal lobe. He warned me that Talia was trying to steal my seed to give birth to a new bloodline of assassins impervious to disease and with telepathy. The woman had my penis in her mouth, and as soon as I opened my eyes, Sue had the girl by the neck, and tossed her to the ground. She kicked the girl out of the room.

I pulled off my pants, laid next to Sue, and held her for awhile. I shared my blood with her when I placed her in the Lazarus Pit, and it was part of the rejuvenation process. I had forgotten how much longer my body was than hers. The heat flying off her small frame aroused me, and as she faced away from me on the bed, I entered her as a man should a woman. I heard her say, "Careful" as I shoved my manhood deep into her wet vagina. It had been so long since I had her that I nearly lost control. She was like a wild animal on me as she straddled me, rocking back and forth until she orgasmed. When we finished, Sue lay across my chest, and said, "Why did you bring me back to this cruel world?"

I kissed her on the forehead and outlined her body as she lay in my arms. "So we can raise our boy together," I said with a grimace. "I was barely living without you."

"How long has it been?" She asked.

"Just a week," I said. "Thong is with your brother."

She walked over to the fire in the middle of the room and extended her hands out to feel the warmth. Her hair had grown past her shoulders, and then she said, "I feel nothing, Nick. I feel nothing at all."

"What do you mean?" I asked. I walked over to her, placed my arms around her, and she held onto me tightly.

"I know I love you, but I don't feel it in my heart," she said, "It's like I'm empty on the inside."

"Your soul is empty, Sue," I said with a scowl on my face. "I knew this would happen."

"You mean I'm a monster?" She asked.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

I had a momentary, bitter look of anger on my face, scrunched, stressed and teeth showing for Talia to see because she tried to have one of her female servants steal my dirty condoms out of the trashcan. I threw the woman out of my room, pocketed my semen filled condoms, and Sue and I left her compound. If she had obtained one smidgen of my semen, my father would have sent a legion of Deceivers to wipe out the assassins.

We landed in Metropolis on a cloudy Tuesday. It was a busy workday. It was approximately eighty degrees outside. Sue had on her light-colored, spring dress, and she looked nice. I purchased it while in Switzerland because I knew she'd need it. We hopped in my Jeep, and roamed around Metropolis for a bit. "I'm starving," I said softly. I had on a black business suit, a sophisticated suit with black shoes, black socks, and a nice jacket with it. Thong was in school, and we decided to keep him in class while we went to the Sushi House on Seventh Street. Saint Michaels was right across the street from the Sushi House. I sent him a text as soon as our plane landed so he'd know we'd be picking him up later, and not his uncle.

Sue and I walked into the Sushi House holding hands. The savory smell of the beef Pho permeated throughout the entire building. I loved it. I desired the Sushi House because I proposed to Sue in a similar Sushi House in Little Africa. When we walked through the front door, several of my books were being sold on a stand right next to the cash register. I still made a lot of money off my very first book, and by the time Thong turned seven, I had written nearly twenty books. When I pulled one of the paperbacks off the shelf, the owner of the restaurant said, "That book is ten dollars. You have to pay to read." I looked at the woman, and laughed a little.

I gave her a stern look, and set the book back on the shelf. It was obvious that the lady didn't know I authored the book, but that was okay. It was no big deal to me. Brandy-a young waitress-sat us at a two-person table near the main window. She handed us menus with all types of Sushis on the front of it.

"You're Nick Ryan," Brandy said, "I've read all your books."

"Thank you," I said. "They're all about this young lady right here."

"You're Lisa Lee?" She asked.

"My name is Sue," she said, "But Lisa Lee is based on me." She didn't smile at all when she confirmed the character Lisa Lee was based on her. The girl ran off, came back with her copies of my books, and I signed them all.

"Mister Ryan, you're like my hero," she said, "We have all the Pho flavors mentioned in your books too."

"Thank you," I said. "I hope to try them all over time."

The owner of the restaurant was a forty-year-old Asian woman named Kim Lo. She wore a white sweater with a blue shirt underneath it. She was a thin woman with gray hairs peppered into her head. "I'm going to need you to pay now," the owner said. Her huge lips were curved downward, and she had an obvious scowl on her face. I didn't quite understand her anger with me, but I didn't like it.

"Now? We pay after the meal," I said with a grimace on my face. My countenance had changed dramatically because I was now upset. I didn't think anything could upset me with my wife by my side.

"Why are you demanding money now?" Sue asked.

"'Cause his kind doesn't like to pay," she snapped.

"What?" I asked. "What kind is my kind?"

"Niggers!" She screeched.

Sue looked at the woman in her cold, yellow face, and said, "I'd starve to death before I'd eat here." She looked over at Brandy, and said, "I have a store called Sue's Bistro. If you want to work for a good person, you give me a call. It's in the slums."

"Mister Ryan, I don't know what to say," Brandy said.

Later…

Thong sat on the front steps of the apartment complex with me, and he kept looking down the street at his mama's bistro. He appeared nervous with the way he tapped his feet. I didn't want to promise him anything about any true reconciliation between Sue and I. I loved her. She loved me. But at the same time, we had an enormous amount of outside influences standing in the way of our union. By enormous, I meant my father, and when talking about a man with telepathic abilities like him, it was like having the United States Government opposed to me.

I've always been opposed to using my abilities without cause. For example, my father used his powers to enter into Sue's mind, and it destroyed my marriage. I could have counterbalanced what he did to a certain degree, but it would have opened me to her deepest thoughts, and I didn't want to know what was living inside her mind. Often, people think unsavory things, and even though I can eventually decipher a person's thoughts, I still have to deal with the fact that most people think horrible things. In my younger years, when I first arrived in the United States for college, I noticed a lot of men thought about hurting women. This was the reason I loved life in Switzerland with Talia during my training. We were trained to control our thoughts, and rarely did they have errant thoughts. Well, Talia often had evil thoughts to get me into trouble with her father. She'd love misleading me and tricking me into bad behaviors, and then her father would punish me in the arena.

"I'm hungry," Thong said out loud.

"If you want to visit your mama, then just say it," I said. "I know I do."

"Okay," he said. "Let's do it."

Sue's Bistro…

When we walked into Sue's Bistro, I smiled at all the activity in the place. It was a packed house, and her cashier was cashing people out just as quickly as they were coming into the place. Her sister-in-law headed a staff of eight other people who made all types of goodies in the handled most of the cooking, and two, young Asian waitresses waited tables. It was truly a family atmosphere. Sue seated us in the back of the restaurant, and before I sat down, she hugged me deeply.

"I still don't feel like I should," she whispered into my left ear. "It's like I'm just going through the motions."

"I will find you help, Sue," I said softly. "There are gods in the world who can restore you."

Sue looked over at Thong, and said, "You're my child, Thong. I named you."

"Yes, ma'am," he said.

"I'm hoping your father and I can come together as a family," she said with a smile. "We can be a family."

I smiled. "I would like that," I said, "I will definitely be working towards that."

"I would like that too," Thong said.

I took Thong back home after we ate, and he tried to throw a fit over not being able to visit his mama longer, but I shut him down immediately. I went into his mind, and forced him to feel a great sorrow for embarrassing me in front of strangers, and then it usually shut him up. It was the only way I knew how to control him without raising my voice, and I hated raising my voice. But at the same time, my father did me the same way if I snapped back at him. Even with all the training with the League of Assassins didn't stop me from causing trouble with my parents. If I wanted something in my youth, I still went about it like an impetuous child.

"Father, you're always abusing me with your powers," he said with a grimace as we walked home. "It's not fair."

"You're right," I said, "I shouldn't have gone in your mind like that, but we don't make scenes like you were about to do either. You're ten-years-old. Let that be your first lesson in our way." I paused for a moment. "For years, I've suffered because your mother left us. I neglected training you in the way of the Deceivers due to worrying about my own feelings."

"What will you teach me?" He asked.

"The history of our people. How to move objects with your mind, enter into other people's minds, and bend their will to yours," I said. When we arrived to the Towering Heights, I grabbed my son around the waist, flew straight up in the air, and landed on top of the building.

"Can I fly?" He asked.

"Yes," I said, "I'm using the power of my mind to lift us off the ground." I looked down to the ground, watched some of the kids running up and down the street, but didn't pay them too much attention. "Our people frown on my relationship with your mother."

"What do you mean?" He asked.

"She's Asian and I'm of the Deceivers," I said, "In reality, most humans are of one race. I'm not human. You're only half human. At man's earliest stages, the Deceivers came to Earth to fight with the Great Mother against the Guardians over a million years ago. The Ptah, Hermes-Sato, and Athena fought against the Guardians, but they overpowered the gods because of a traitorous spy in their midst. The Deceivers infiltrated the Guardians, found out a traitor existed within the gods. We told the Ptah about the traitor, and it broke his heart because it was his brother, Hermes. Immediately, the Ptah built a prison for his brother called the Speed Force. He stuck Hermes in it for a thousand years. When the Guardians overwhelmed the gods, the Great Mother brought forth her greatest creation, Luciferous. He brought the war to an end when he exiled his brothers on a planet called Oa. The Deceivers settled in Central Africa where Ptah ruled over us with fire and fury at times. We spent so much time trying to please him that we forgot how to enjoy life. Eventually, we created a magical spell that broke his hold over us."

"So, our people defeated a god?" Thong asked.

"He let us thrive," I said, "But he has a kingdom that exists between two worlds," I said, "I've never been there, but I know it's there. The Deceivers have kept an eye on the earth and space for thousands of years. We hope the Guardians of Oa never step out of line again, but we know every two thousand years, the universe needs a correction."

"Who will correct ti?" He asked.

"Luciferous will correct it," I said, "That's the way the legend goes. Another great war will happen in the cosmos."

"But isn't that the devil?" He asked with a grimace.

"Of course," I said, "He brought mankind knowledge that interrupted the elites, so they turned him into something scary. In every culture throughout the cosmos, they've written a story about Luciferous. He's considered the first Deceiver. He has all our powers, but a thousand times stronger."

"Wait? You're saying Satan is the good guy?" Thong asked.

"Yes," I said, "Satan introduced mankind to knowledge, but the powers that be wanted humankind to stay in the dark. The story of the elites suppressing knowledge is told throughout time. In the story, Satan tries to give humankind knowledge and God tries to keep mankind from knowledge. And then when mankind embraces the knowledge, God punishes humankind for that." I paused for a moment. "Now, you go shower, go to bed, and I'm going to hang with your mama for a little bit."

"Are y'all going to do it?" He asked.

"Boy, if you don't take your butt inside…," I said.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

I heard a slew of sirens racing across the slums, and according to my police scanner, a Black Lightning impersonator attacked a couple of cops. I remembered Black Lightning from years ago, but from what I remembered, some gangster killed him. I wasn't sure what happened to him because when his mishap happened, Sue and I were divorcing. The cops were rushed off to the hospital, and one of them was listed in critical condition. I paused for a moment in disbelief because I didn't think he would do anything like that. Often, I asked myself what the Suicide Slums had to offer and to be honest, I don't think anything. But at the same time, I offered a good, sturdy apartment complex to the residents of Suicide Slums. In addition, I donated one hundred thousand dollars to the Boys and Girls Club, and an additional seventy-five thousand dollars for student supplies. I had heard about teachers across the slums paying for supplies out of their own pockets, and that bothered me. I tried to do what I could to help alleviate some of the pains of poverty.

Thong fell asleep soon after he finished his shower, so I ran down the street to see Sue. It was around nine o'clock in the evening. Her staff cleaned the inside of the restaurant while she pushed a broom around the front of the building. She wore a belt that had her lock blade on it. She kept it with her while she cleaned around the facility because she didn't trust people. She looked much older than thirty-four for some reason, but I didn't mind. When it came to Sue, I didn't care that she looked much older than me. I loved her since we were in college together, and I loved her now.

"Do you need help?" I asked with a smile. I walked up behind her, and gently placed my right hand on the back of her neck. The warmth I felt from her was reassuring. It had been years since I had touched her with any affection, and it felt brand new. She looked back at me for a split second and smiled.

"Not really," she said, "But I can use the company." She swept calmly for a moment, and then said, "I never wanted to be apart from you." She turned to me, sat on the bench in front of her store, and looked down at the ground for a moment. "I cried every day without you, but your father wanted us apart."

I didn't know exactly how to answer her because I knew my father didn't want me with Sue; however, he manipulated her without my knowledge. I thought she left me under her own free will, and I didn't expect he had something to do with her reasoning for leaving me."Only if I had known why you left," I said calmly. "I could have tried to persuade my father or something." I sat next to her on the bench, hugged her, and then asked, "How was your first day back to work?"

"It felt good to be back," she said with a smile, "Nothing had really changed. Everybody thought I was in the hospital."

"That's good," I said while pinching her cheeks. "You're still my honey." Several young men walked down the street throwing up gang signs in my direction. I didn't know exactly what to make of them, but they were familiar faces in the neighborhood. I looked over at them, and one of them gave me a stare.

"What's up?" He asked in an aggressive manner. At first, I thought he was going to charge me.

I nodded and then turned back to Sue. I didn't want to stare at him too long and give him the impression that I was challenging him. "So, you kept my last name?" I asked her.

"Yes, sir," she said. "I thought about changing it back, but I didn't see any reason."

Her staff headed out the front door, and one of the ladies said, "Misses Ryan, we're all done for the night."

"We open up at eleven in the morning, guys. See you around ten thirtyish," she said. After all her employees exited the building, we entered, and she turned on some soft music. We danced around the dining area for a little while, and she only came up to my chest. "I need a shower," she said softly. "I know I smell like fried grease."

"You can come back to the Towering Heights with me," I said as I held her close to me. "I'll wash you like I did so many years ago."

She paused for a moment, and then said, "We need to take our time about these things." She looked out the window, placed her hands behind her back, and then said, "We need to be careful about not hurting Thong." She looked back at me with a smirk on her face. "I know you can't get enough of my body for some strange reason."

"Nobody wants your body," a voice came from behind me that sounded rough. I turned around immediately to see who was behind me, and it was the gang members.

"Get out of here!" I said loudly. Sue came up behind me, placed her hand on my back, and we watched three men standing in front of us. The man who spoke had a handgun pointed directly at us, and he held it with confidence.

"You don't tell me what to do," he said, "I have the gun, idiot."

I looked at the young kid for a second, and said, "Aren't you Juju Reed?"

"He knows you, Juju," one of the kids said with a scowl on his face. "Let's kill him."

I went into Juju's mind with my telepathic powers, and I could sense that he planned on killing us. It wasn't the first time that the One Hundred conducted a senseless killing and it wouldn't be the last time. Killers lived throughout the slums, and I immediately realized that the boys in front of me were just another group of murderers in a town full of them.

"Don't hurt my wife," I said in a strong voice.

One of the other young men laughed, "We'll kill her slowly."

The young man holding the gun chuckled, but I didn't think anything was funny. I could hear the noises of the night. I placed my arms around Sue, and she hugged me around the waist.

Juju pulled back the hammer on his pistol. "What an odd looking couple?" He laughed.

With the power of my mind, I made his arms feel like heavyweights, and he dropped the gun to his side. He tried to lift his weapon back up to point it at me, but he couldn't. He struggled, but I took his ability to shoot me because I wanted to preserve life. If he shot Sue, I would lose all control, kill every last one of them, and smear their blood all over the city. I had the ability to manipulate the mind. I thought it was an easy task for me with all my training as a Deceiver. His friends fell to their knees, and I took away their abilities to stand or even talk-or to do anything except sit on their knees. Suddenly, I heard my ex-wife start screaming as loud as possible, and when I looked down at her, she had raised her lock blade above her head. It came down in the middle of Juju's head, and I knew he was dead. She stabbed him repeatedly, and then turned to the other two guys, and slit their throats. It happened so fast that I barely had enough time to prepare myself. The blood spewed out of the boys' necks like water fountains, and it covered the entire dining room floor.

When I called the police, they immediately made the entire building a crime scene but didn't take her to jail. We went through the scenario of what happened several times, and the bloodied scene matched up to what we were saying. Sue knew her way around a butcher knife, and she caught the thugs completely off guard. The cops called it self-defense. I told the cops that the young men tried to kill my ex-wife, and she attacked them in self-defense. Juju still had the gun in his right hand as his body lay on the ground.

We were up most of the night after the cops left cleaning the blood off the ground. Honestly, I didn't know how I felt when Sue killed those boys. I thought I had everything under control. In my mind, I thought I was going to be able to change the outcome of the events. I thought I'd be able to deceive them into leaving the bistro with the understanding that they accomplished something in the process. As we cleaned up the place, my ex-wife hummed like she hadn't killed three people.

"Are you okay?" I asked with a smile.

"Of course," she said in an upbeat mood. "I feel really good." She paused for a moment. She was on her hands and knees scrubbing the floor clean when she said, "I guess I should feel some kind of way about killing those men but I don't. They would have killed us without thinking twice about it."

"You're probably right," I said, "It's a cruel world."

By the time we finished cleaning up the mess, it was almost five o'clock in the morning. I took Sue home with me because I didn't want her traveling so late at night. She dropped all her clothes in front of me, hopped in the shower, and then I hopped in with her. She washed my back and then I washed her back, and everything felt like it did in college. I remembered how we made love to the early morning in college even though we had tests the next day. And before I had a chance to think about things, we engaged in coitus while soapy water ran down our bodies. She was aggressive to me almost like a feral animal. She wanted it hard and fast-and with me pulling her hair. She begged me to spank her while we had sex, and that one was new for her. In the past, I couldn't remember ever spanking her. We had sex for the next hour like we were in our teens, and then when I awoke the next morning, she was already gone.

When I checked my phone around noontime, Thong sent me a text message telling me he made it to school safely, and that his Mama took him to class. I sat against the headboard of my bed and thought things were moving a little fast between Sue and I. I didn't know how I felt about her taking Thong to school without me. She hadn't been in the boy's life for his entire existence, and I didn't want him getting hurt by her. I looked at an old picture I had of Sue on my phone because I remembered it was my father who ran her off. I have to believe she loved me and loved my son, but at the same time, I knew she was void of a soul.

I needed two things to interact with my father on a telepathic level: patience and humbleness, and when it came to him, I had very little of both. I had to converse with him telepathically because he knew more about obtaining a soul-restorer than I. Honestly, I didn't know what to look for in matters of the soul. My father cut me off from training further with the Deceivers because of my relationship with Sue. I climbed out of bed, walked into the kitchen, and had a smidgen of coffee. When I felt a tingle in my mind, I knew it was my father contacting me. I had sent out a telepathic vibe to him in the hopes that he would contact me without too much drama about it.

"You've gone against every Deceiver Law on the books by bringing Sue back from the dead," he said telepathically. "Her death was natural, but what you did was an unnatural act."

I tried my best not to put my emotions into my communication with my father, but I always resented him for turning his back on me, especially when he cut me off from his wealth. "Perhaps if you'd allowed us to live out our lives together I would have left her in her internal resting place," I said telepathically. "But I didn't. She's without a soul, and I must find a way to restore it."

I felt my father's frustration with me, but he relented nonetheless to my needs. "You seek Constantine, but he's caught between worlds at this time," he said telepathically. "He has the most experience."

"You seem to know of others," I said telepathically. "Who else can help me?"

"I'm reluctant to give you this information," he said.

"I know you hate Sue, but I need this, father," I said telepathically.

"Can you not be so damn presumptuous?" He asked telepathically. "I want Sue to have a soul, but the next name on the list is a young god. He's green in these areas."

"Who is it?" He asked.

"It's the Vulcan," he said telepathically. "You can contact him telepathically, but he's often busy with school work and dealing with life as a human kid," he said telepathically. "Lastly, we have Michael Hall, the wielder of the Glove of Darkness. The Vulcan came to Central Africa, helped with retrieving the glove, and gave it to Michael Hall. He's too green with his powers to give you the help you need. The Vulcan is your best bet."

After I spoke to my father, I indulged in another cup of coffee and read about the Vulcan online. Amazingly, he had a video or somebody had a video of him attacking an actual tank, and smashing it with his fist. He was extremely powerful in both the physical and mental realms. When I reached out to him telepathically, he didn't answer at first. I wondered if he could hear my thoughts. When I went outside for some fresh air, I suddenly felt a tingle in my mind, and then I heard his voice.

"What, Deceiver?" The Vulcan asked telepathically. "I promised to stay out of Deceiver business as long as you stayed out of mine, Mister Ryan."

"It's not like that," I said telepathically. "I need your help."

"About?" He asked telepathically.

"I need my wife's soul restored," I said.

"What? What in the hell did you do?" He asked telepathically.

"She died, and I put her in the pit," I said.

"You're an idiot," he said, "First, I'm well aware of the Lazarus Pit. Secondly, are you mad?"

"I don't know if you have somebody you love with all your heart, but I do," he said, "I did what I did."

"Because you're selfish," he said. "Say it!"

"Say what?" I asked.

"Say you're selfish?" He said telepathically.

"Why?" I asked.

"Why should I waste my precious time on a fool?" He asked. "If you can't admit you're selfish, then why should I help you? You act like you don't have faults."

"But I do have faults," I said. "I'm selfish when it comes to my wife."

"Okay, you selfish bastard," he said, "But I don't work for free."

"What's the price?" I said.

"You'll sign my copy of 'Little Asian Girl', and treat my girlfriend and I to some Pho," he said telepathically. "That's the price."

"You got it," I said.

I traveled to Metropolis to pick up my son at Saint Michael's. It was about three o'clock in the afternoon, and Thong ran right up to my Jeep with all his books. His hair looked wild because he didn't comb it before he left for school.

"Why didn't you comb your hair this morning?" I asked with a grimace. "You don't go out the house looking like a wild animal."

"Yes, sir," he said.

I looked across at the Sushi House at all the yellow police tape around the building. I counted about five uniformed cops and two detectives on the grounds with a meat wagon parked beside the building. Thong had already climbed into the passenger seat with some gum in his mouth. I could hear him smacking on it as I watched the activities at the Sushi House. I don't know why it concerned me, but I had bad thoughts about the owner. I thought _I hope you die to the woman,_ but I didn't mean it. When I drove past the place, I saw the paramedics roll out a body bag, and I knew it was the owner.

It was obvious-from my encounter with the woman-that I shouldn't mourn her death because of her ill-treatment of me. She wouldn't have cared if those One Hundred hoodlums had killed me. Honestly, nobody cared what happened in the slums. It would have been nothing more than a case of black on black crime if that were such a thing. Black men-once appreciated and loved in the community-were feared and hated because of the way the media portrayed us. Rarely, the media put positive images or stories of black people in the news, and I often found myself yearning for some positive news coverage of black men.

"I'm hungry, father," Thong said as I drove down the street. "I forgot my lunch."

"You went all day without eating?" I asked. I was upset over the idea of him going a full day without eating anything.

"Yes, sir," he said.

"Are you kidding me, Thong?" I asked with a grimace. "You could have easily text me that you needed me to bring your lunch."

"I didn't want to bother you," he said.

I looked over at him with his wild hair sticking out in every direction on his head. "You do understand that I don't have an ordinary job? I work from home," I said, "I don't want you going all day without food again."

"Yes, sir," he said.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

Sue and I walked over to Martin Luther King Jr's park, a nice park that set just north of the Towering Heights. The daffodils grew on the fringes of the playgrounds, and to the unaware, the place had innocents about it, at least in the afternoon when all the miscreants were still asleep. Often, the city held benefits and concerts in the park, and Sue had a stand that she'd set up to sell Malcolm X gear. It was the way of things.

Kids-who skipped school-roamed around the area and screamed curses at times. Several young boys stood at the far end of the park and sold drugs. It was obvious what they were doing. I watched several cops drive by the park, spot the drug dealers, but didn't do anything about it. The students reigned when it came to the mean streets of the slums. I tried my best not to use my metahuman powers to pry, but when I watched the cops skirt by the drug dealers, I accidentally entered into the driver's mind. I saw images of Lala, and then out of nowhere, I saw the image of Lala dead. I tried to determine if what I was seeing was fact or fiction. He could have imagined the death of the street hustler, or if the slums were lucky enough, he could be dead.

Sue stood directly in front of me for a moment. I placed my head on her midsection as I sat on the Merry-Go-Round. She smelled like fresh peaches because of her peach shampoo. She wore a nice, unintrusive perfume that I liked. Sue had on one of her blue, spring dresses with a white belt that tied in the front. She kept her hair long, plain, and it looked like she recently dyed out the gray. I picked her up, placed her on my lap, and I felt the warmth emanating from between her thick, Asian legs.

"I hope this young boy can restore my soul," she said. Her lips barely moved when she talked. "I just want to feel something."

I ran my fingers through her nice hair. She leaned her head against mine, and then kissed me softly. "My father won't allow me to set foot in my world of Pearl City," I said, "We have people there who could restore your soul."

"Your world?" She asked. "You make it sound like you're from another planet or something."

I laughed. "But I am," I said, "Central Africa is a gateway to my homeworld of Pearl City." I smiled. "Can't you tell that I'm somewhat different than all the other people you've met. There are approximately four hundred Deceivers on Earth, two hundred on Doraxia, two hundred on Neo Star, and nearly three thousand on Moxia. These are great worlds that we predict will form a great alliance one day, and rule the universe for thousands of years."

"You never told me you were from another world, Nick," she said, "I think that would be of importance."

"I'm telling you now because I think it's in our best interest that you know these things," I said, "I think the world is changing."

We sat on the Merry-Go-Round and chatted for a little while, but when I talked about Pearl City, it confused her. She didn't believe that life existed on other worlds, but I thought it was myopic to think the way she did. The fact that I could move objects with my mind should have been more than enough evidence. The fact that I could fly should have given her more than enough confirmation of my alien origins. In addition, I probably was the blackest human being on the planet outside the other three hundred and ninety-nine Deceivers on the planet.

"So, this means Thong is half alien?" She asked with a grimace.

"He's half Deceiver," I said, "He has great powers, but none of us compare to the beings from the realm of the gods. And from what I know of this Vulcan, he's a god. When my mind interlocked with his, I could feel his energy, and it was like nothing I ever felt in my life."

"Not even your father's?" She asked.

"No. Much more powerful than my father's aura," I said, "In fact, his power scared me. In any case, I suspect he'd come here on Saturday, and restore your soul."

"I don't guess living without a soul is too bad," she said softly. "I'm managing, but sometimes I do have bouts of pure rage."

I looked at her chubby face, the way she tilted her head and smiled. Her inner beauty that usually peeked through at the right moment didn't because she lacked a soul. Honestly, I didn't think a soulless Sue was that big of a deal because nobody knew what a soul was exactly. But as my ex-wife sat on my lap, I could truly tell something was off about her. Everything about her seemed fake, and even though I was highly attracted to her, it was her frumpy frame and her authentic Asian appearance that I loved. In my youth, when I trained with the League of Assassins, I often asked myself if I had some kind of crazy fetish for frumpy Asian girls. Often, my choices in women caused a raucous, even on my homeworld of Pearl City. Most people desired the cover girl look, but not me. In fact, I found the slender, svelte framed girls frail and weak-and much too delicate for my taste. I tried one once before I met Sue, and it left me longing for a fleshy bodied girl. I recalled how thin and dreary looking the young lady appeared to be in my dormitory bed. The bone to bone contact left me in a state of shock, and as soon as we finished, I pretty much tossed her out of my room.

She smiled at me, and said, "This Vulcan is only a child."

"My father told me he was our best bet," I said as I watched some tattered prostitutes meandering their way around the park.

A piece of paper landed on my foot. I happened to pick it up, and it was about the Carnival of Love on Saturday. It featured a band called Black Mold out of Little Africa with JJ Johnson and Peppermint Lee. "Everybody loves our Carnival of Love."

"Shit! I have a booth I have to get ready for that damn thing," she said, "I'm going to sell Malcolm X shirts." She paused for a moment, and then asked, "Don't you have some boxes of your books?"

"Yeah," I said.

"We can sell them at my booth on Saturday," she said, "Maybe introduce a new generation to your writing."

It must have been about two o'clock in the afternoon, and Sue and I headed for her Bistro when several young men approached us. One of the kids had a metal bat, and he walked right up to me. He had on a t-shirt that read One Hundred on the front, and I knew he was about to cause trouble.

"You killed my boys," he said as he pointed the bat at Sue.

"Don't point that bat at my wife," I said with a grimace. I pushed the bat out of the way, and when he went to swing it at me, I flipped him over my left shoulder. "What's your name, son?" He lay flat on the ground and looked up at me with a grimace on his face.

"I'm not your son," he said bitterly. "They call me Pete Dog, asshole." Hopping off the ground, he and his crew absconded from us because he didn't expect I knew how to defend myself.

Sue looked over at me, and said, "That Pete Dog will be back. I see that now."

"I wouldn't worry about him too much," I said, "He's the low man on the totem pole." I kissed her softly and then walked back to the Towering Heights. It was about two thirty when I heard one of the kids crying on the side of the building, and it sounded like Tyrese Jenkins. I thought he should have been in school, but he wasn't. When I walked over to him, he lay on the ground in the fetal position. He had on a black dress with a bow in his hair.

"What's wrong with you, Tyrese?" I asked. Slowly, he raised off the ground with tears running down his face. I automatically thought one of the other kids bullied him for wearing dresses, but that wasn't the case at all.

"It's Leroy," he said, "I saw his body rotting in a field behind Harriet Tubman's Elementary School."

I looked at him for a moment, and then asked, "Are you sure it was Leroy?"

"Yes, sir," he said, "I just happened to stumble across him during recess. I ran home as soon as I saw him."

I called the police about Leroy's body in the field, and the cops came immediately to investigate. Inspector Henderson walked up to me, shook my right hand, and said, "We're thankful for all the money you've donated to the department." He was a lot shorter than me and had a nicely trimmed hair cut. He looked like he spent some time in the military with the way he dressed. He had on a nice, well-pressed uniform.

"You're welcomed," I said, "I've been trying to do my part to better the neighborhood."

I looked over at Leroy's body as it lay dead up against the fence. His hands looked like melted cheese, and his eyes had been cut out of his poor little head. I hated that Tyrese had to see a familiar face like Leroy in such a horrible condition, but the slums caused kids to grow up fast. I stressed over Leroy's death because he was a good kid. I walked over to the field, watched the cops investigate, and I asked Inspector Henderson how long he had been in the field.

"I saw him a week ago," I said with my arms folded. "He was talking about interviewing for a new job."

"He's been in the field for about four days," the detective said, "I'm looking at the One Hundred behind this."

"What makes you think the One Hundred was involved?" I asked.

"The acid burned hands," he said, "It's one of their signature moves for somebody who ripped off the gang. They took his eyes because he saw something he wasn't supposed to see."

I looked over at the inspector, and he seemed calm, but I wasn't calm at all, at least not on the inside. I wanted something done about the One Hundred because they had completely destroyed the Suicide Slums. But from what I could tell, the One Hundred appeared to be a permanent part of the slums. They were a criminal organization with a head and a body, and it was highly possible they had spies in the police department. I didn't know that for sure, but I suspected some of the cops were paid to look the other way.

The high school principal, Jefferson Pierce-a respectable man in the slums-walked over to me. He looked over at Leroy and then turned away from the mangled mess. "He was a good kid," Jefferson said with a scowl on his face.

"Yes, he was," I said. "He did odd jobs for me around the apartment complex, but he wanted something with some stability. I thought he found something."

"Mister Ryan, why do you stay in the slums?" Jefferson asked. "You have money. You've written books. You come from money."

"I don't think I can make a difference living in Metropolis," I said. "Besides, they don't really appreciate our kind across the tracks. The slums are my home, Mister Pierce. Every year I purchase much-needed school supplies for our teachers. If we can make a difference in the classroom, we can maybe make a difference in these streets."

A few hours later…

Thong sat across from me at a small, inner-city restaurant called Biggie Macs, a little burger joint about a mile from Towering Heights. It could easily hold twenty people, but I hadn't ever seen that many patrons in the diner at one time. We sat quietly while we ate our meals, and I had a large diet soda in front of me. I let Thong eat a warm apple pie with his food, but I kept telling him to stop eating so much sugar. I don't know why I said such things when I had no plans of limiting his sugar intake, but I told him not to consume too much sugar like all the other parents told their children. Biggie Macs was sparsely crowded, about seven people in all in the burger place. I watched people creep into the restaurant, start fights with the management, and fake like they didn't receive the correct order. Thong and I had just sat down to eat, and two people had claimed they found a bug in their meals, but it was a lie on both occasions.

"I'm tired of y'all trying to rip me off," the manager screamed. "Now, get the hell out of my establishment."

"Yeah. I'll be back, bitch!" The young man exclaimed. "We'll see what happens then."

I realized after a few huge bites of my burger that it was too much food for one person. I pushed my food to the side while my son continued to eat his small hamburger, and watched some of the activity going on outside the burger joint. I kept an eye on my surroundings because of all the hostility in the restaurant earlier. The raucous had me on edge, and ever since Sue killed the thugs in her bistro, I had been on edge, filled with anxiety, and worried about Thong. In addition, I worried a killer lived in the neighborhood because of Leroy's unfortunate death.

"Thong, I wanted to tell you something," I said.

He had taken a bite of his hamburger right before I spoke. It took him a minute to chew his food, swallow it, and then he asked, "About what?"

"Leroy's body was found in the field near the elementary school," I said calmly. "Somebody killed him."

He placed his hamburger on the table and grimaced. "He was one of the good guys."

"That's true, son," I said, "Hopefully if we're lucky, the cops will find the person who killed him."

As I talked to him, he looked down at the table, cried, and then pushed his apple pie to the side. I realized after he lost his appetite that I should have told him after he ate about Leroy because he knew the young man quite well. All of a sudden, three gang members barged into the restaurant with their guns drawn. I grabbed Thong, shoved him under the table, and then approached the men as they screamed for the manager.

"Listen, guys! You don't want to do this," I said.

"You better sit your black ass down," one of the gang members said. On the counter, a box of plastic knives set, and when the gang member trained his weapon on me, I threw all the plastic knives at the gang members, and they cut through their gun hands. It happened so fast that none of them had the chance to pull their triggers. When they dropped their weapons, they tried to run out of the restaurant, but I caused them to collapse on the ground.

"Call the cops," I said with a grimace.

"That's not a good idea," the manager said, "The One Hundred owns the cops."

I looked over at the manager for a moment, and said, "When these men wake-up, they'll want to kill everybody."

"It is what it is," she said. "I deal with these idiots every day. After somebody puts a bullet in them, some new thugs will be back tomorrow."

I didn't like using my powers violently, and if any other Deceiver had intervened in a robbery, they would have killed the men without question. My sole responsibility to the slums was mitigating the violence around me. But at the same time, I had grown tired of the thugs running the streets. The men who lay on the ground in front of me wanted to kill an innocent woman, and now I stood in front of them wondering if I should let them live.

"Son, let's go," I said. He crawled from underneath the table and ran over to me. When we walked out of the burger joint, we heard several gunshots, and when I turned around, the manager stood over the thugs and put several bullets in them. I was in a state of shock for a moment, and then I grabbed Thong, and we left.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

The city moved a fleet of portable bathrooms into the area around Martin Luther King Jr's park for the Saturday festivities. It was Wednesday night. Sue spent the evening with me. We ate dinner with Thong, and then when he went to bed, I brought Sue to my bedroom, but she threw a tantrum out of nowhere. I watched her pace in front of my bed, and she rambled obscenities under her breath. Immediately, I tried to reach the Vulcan, but he blocked me, and then he called me rude. I tried to tell him that Sue's soullessness made her dangerous, but he didn't enjoy me interfering with his alone time.

"All I am is a sex doll to you," she screamed as she paced in front of my bed. "You never want to just sit and talk. It's always sex."

"That's not true," I said with a grimace. "We often do other things, Sue."

"You should have let me die," she said. She leaped on the bed and tried to attack me, but I caught her in mid-air. I placed her on the ground and then used my telepathy to cause her to pass out. In some ways, I regretted going into her mind like that, but since I resurrected her with my blood and the Lazarus Pit, she had powers similar to mine, but not near as strong. She lay on the ground snoring loudly, and I just let her lay like that. I had so much love for her in my heart, and I sacrificed my homeworld to be with her.

"I'm sorry, Sue," I whispered as I ran my fingers through her hair. I left her on the floor and tried my best not to disturb her, but when morning came, she had already left. When I finally awoke, I had to rush Thong to school across town, and he kept quiet the entire time until I parked in front of Saint Michael's. I fed him a sausage and egg biscuit and then packed him some leftover pizza. I usually fixed him a better lunch, but I have to admit that following Sue around town weighed heavy on my soul.

"Is Mama going to move in with us?" He asked calmly. I understood how he felt about being a family unit. When Sue was in the house with me, I was at my best. It felt good being a family unit, and it was always important to make sure he understood why Sue didn't live with us. It didn't have anything to do with him, and in addition to that, I had to make sure he understood he wasn't a mistake. It wasn't easy making him feel whole when I had so much working against me. My own father didn't accept my son because he was half human and half Deceiver. If anybody was to blame, then it was me because I knew the law of my people, and I chose to break it.

I looked over at him for a second, and then said, "It depends."

"On what?" He asked.

"A lot of things," I said with a smile. "We're taking it slowly."

Later in the morning…

There must have been one hundred cops combing the city when I returned to the slums. When I parked my car in front of Towering Heights, I saw a series of cop cars flying by, and one of the officers slowed down to get a good look at me. Immediately, I looked him directly in his cold, blue eyes, and went into his mind. I panicked immediately because Pete Dog's body had turned up in the middle a field. The image I received from the cop was a macabre one. Somebody ripped the gang member's body into pieces, and I wasn't sure why. They had eaten out the boy's stomach, and I didn't know who would do such a thing. With the killing of Pete Dog, I estimated a total of eight gang members killed in less than three days in the slums.

Thursday…

I hadn't heard from Sue for some time, and it didn't bother me too badly because traffic picked up at her restaurant towards the weekend. Besides, I wasn't too sure I wanted her in the house with Thong because of her mental instability. When I walked outside of my apartment complex on Thursday morning, Tyrese and his siblings headed towards Harriet Tubman's elementary school. There was always a gaggle of kids headed towards the elementary school in the morning time, and then Thong dragged his tail out of the house, and I took him to school. But on the way to Saint Michael's, I felt a tingle in my frontal lobe, and I knew it was my father.

"Are you purposely trying to be dense when it comes to your ex-wife?" He asked telepathically. At first, I ignored him because I didn't want to deal with his rudeness. It wasn't beneath him to use crassness and rudeness to undermine my mental stability. "Listen! Sue killed Pete Dog. She ate the boy's stomach until a Lantern showed up on the scene."

"A Lantern? Hal Jordan returned to earth?" I asked.

"No," he said, "This Lanterns name is Eli Ga'Narian of Moxia," he said telepathically, "They're choosing a new Lantern for sector twenty-eight-fourteen."

"Where's Hal Jordan?" I asked. "He's been gone for a few years now."

"He's imprisoned on Vega Star," he said telepathically. "But let's be honest, you don't need to worry about him. You need to head over to the Huffington Hotel, and get the Vulcan to put a soul in your wife before she kills somebody else."

Later in the evening…

I flew over to the Huffington Hotel around seven o'clock in the evening. Thong played video games on the big screen television after he completed all his homework. I stood in front of the large building stressed, depressed, and at the end of my patience over Sue's soullessness. I didn't know where to start with how I felt about her eating Pete Dog, but I have to admit, I think I suspected it was her to a certain degree. When I headed into the building, a tall black guy dressed like a vampire and a pregnant Asian girl dressed like some peppermint candy were singing in the main dining room. They had a crowd of people rocking out to them, and I must admit, they had a good sound.

As soon as I stepped into the main, dining room, I felt the Vulcan enter into my mind. His mind was so powerful that it felt like a weight landing on my frontal lobe. He seemed more powerful now than in the past. "Did you bring her?" He asked telepathically.

"No," I said. "How did you know it was me?"

"You idiot," he said, "I know a Deceiver when I see one. What's wrong with you?"

"Wait? That's you singing?" I asked.

"Yeah," he said telepathically. "Now go get her because each day she goes without a soul the more violent she'll become. Don't come back without her."

I flew back to Sue's Bistro under the cloak of the night sky and then flew her back to the hotel. It didn't happen that fast because I needed to check on Thong, but he was still playing video games. When I returned with Sue, it was a little after nine, and the Vulcan sat in the lounge with his wife, and he had some kind of computer hovering next to his head.

"The Deceiver and his soulless wife are here, JJ," the Computer said.

"My name is JJ and this is my fiancee Peppermint," he said in a strong voice. "I went to your homeworld a few months ago, Mister Ryan. They still don't like me there. You'd think they'd show me more respect since I introduced the Deceivers into this universe."

"We like to think we grew past our creator," I said. "If we remained under your rule, we wouldn't have invented the technology for space travel."

"I've only recently retained all my memories, Mister Ryan," he said, "In truth, I was glad that your race grew out of my control. It means I did it the right way. But after I restore your wife's soul, I need you to talk to your father about the Deceivers' meddling in Moxia's Civil War. Too many lives have already perished, and now I want the fighting to stop."

"I don't know anything about the war," I said calmly.

"I know you don't," he said, "But your father still talks to you. My powers are still Old World, and at the end of the day, I'm still the supreme Deceiver. Now, I've discussed the casualty count with Moxia's Lantern, and the numbers are grim. One day the Destroyer will come to me and asked me who caused the greatest strife in the universe. I hate to say the Deceivers because you're Ptah's creation. And now that I carry his godspark, I'm him, and I don't want Luciferous destroying you."

"I understand, JJ," I said, "I will do what I can."

"That's all I ask," he said.

I watched the young kid closely with my ex-wife, and he held his hands on either side of her head. A red glow came out of his hands, hit her in the head, and then all the free-floating souls in the room visualized for about two seconds. I didn't know so many waywardly spirits existed. And then when he started chanting in a deep voice, one of the souls entered Sue's body, and she began to convulse. The young Vulcan stepped away from her, and then Sue fell to the floor.

"It's done," JJ said with a smile. "She's beautiful again."

"I feel happiness," Sue said with a smile. "I feel better now than before."


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Sue cooked some scrambled eggs, bacon, and biscuits for breakfast, the day after the Vulcan returned her soul. I felt fear in my heart because I promised him that I would discuss Moxia with my father, but I didn't know where to begin. I didn't know too much about the politics of the war, but Deceivers often engaged in informational warfare and had the ability to cause strife on different worlds. I was supposed to intern in Washington DC, and strategically place myself next to the President of the United States, but when I impregnated Sue, my father pulled all my support. Often, I think back to my college years, and I'd like to think I was the one leading Sue astray, but now I wonder because I deceived government officials so she could become a citizen without going through all the paperwork.

All the people like me had skills in manipulating other people. Eventually, I would've tricked the President into appointing me as the Ambassador to Great Britain and placed other Deceivers into important positions under me. But within five years, the plan was to build a political base and create a power structure. But after my father took my wealth and prestige, I became depressed, wrote books, and Sue divorced me. During that time, I noticed my cousin Randolph Ryan stood next to the President on a couple of interviews during some two thousand and nine press conferences. At first, I thought watching a relative ascend to the top of the Deceiver ranks would bother me. I had worked my whole life training with the League of Assassins and studying governments around the universe only to find myself living in the slums. I didn't mind that. In fact, I enjoyed it. But at the same time, I had wealth so I wasn't suffering as far as my status in American society.

"I'm going to open the restaurant at ten o'clock," she said with a smile. "Are you going to do any writing today?"

"I'm not sure," I said with a smile. "I have to speak to my father concerning Moxia." I didn't have any plans on writing one word, and I don't know why I didn't simply tell her the truth. I had a genuine fear of my father and the Vulcan, and when it came to the Vulcan, he was obviously not at full strength. As a child, my father told me with the help of science, the godspark would find its host, and it would take a number of years before the recipient went through the apotheosis to a true god. The Vulcan, as far as I knew, wasn't the herald to the Destroyer, but the herald to the Destroyer-according to the folklore-was responsible for inserting the godspark into the Vulcan and his wife.

"Do you think you can persuade him?" She asked.

"No," I said. "I can only talk to him about it, but history has demonstrated that when the Destroyer decided to wipe out a species, he would without malice. If the Deceivers are the reason races aren't advancing, he'll wipe us out without question." I sat back in my chair for a moment and then said, "We have more than one god surfacing, so something must be happening. If the Herald is working in a lab to bring forth the Destroyer, then this means the Vulcan is the protection."

"What about the Lantern?" Sue asked.

"He's a product of the Guardians of Oa," I said softly. "This means he's an enemy to the Destroyer. He'll do whatever he can to stop the birth of the Destroyer."

"How do the Deceivers fit into this?" She asked.

"We're the writers in this matter," I said, "We'll record this history. We won't be able to stop the War of the Gods. It's brothers against brothers, and now the Oans have the upper hand."

Later in the day…

After I took Thong to school, I traveled to the Huffington Hotel where JJ Johnson stayed with his girlfriend. A lowly looking white girl answered the door, and she dressed like JJ in gothic attire. When I entered his room, she sat on his bed in her pajamas with his girlfriend, and she was holding a guitar with images of Peppermint on it. She was slender, long brownish hair, and pallid skin. She had a youthful brightness to her, and they all looked like children. JJ lay on the floor in his pajamas with some bear claw house shoes on his feet, and he had his feet on the wall like they owned the place. His pregnant girlfriend lay on the bed surrounded by a pile of peppermint candy rappers. I almost laughed at her because she was snacking on a box of Little Debbie's. I didn't want to say anything to her because I knew she carried the godspark of Sekhmet.

I don't think any Deceiver would blame me for being scared and apprehensive around teenage gods. They didn't necessarily seem full of caprice like the folklore surrounding them, but they scared me nonetheless.

"Mister Ryan, that's Vera," he said as he pointed at his little friend. "She plays one mean guitar." The young girl waved at me, and then strummed the strings of her guitar.

"Cool," I said, "But I need to know something?"

"What are you doing here, Mister Ryan?" Peppermint asked. "Your wife is doing better, right?"

"Yes," I said with a grimace. "But I fear something is still wrong with her."

"Um. Yeah!" JJ exclaimed, "You brought your wife back from the dead using your blood." Quickly, he sat up against the wall, and then said, "I went to my homeworld, and my daughters restored my memories of old. When I returned, I restored Peppermint's memories. You're not the first selfish Deceiver, and I think you should know that. Every generation has an idiot."

"Do you have to be so mean?" I asked.

"It's true," Peppermint said, "She may or may not have a thirst for human blood, but she's a killer nonetheless."

"Are you serious?" I asked. "Oh, my gawd."

"Aren't you the dramatic one?" Vera said.

"I think you need to be intrusive like all the rest of your kind," JJ said. "And read her freaking mind for yourself. I read it. Your wife killed that Asian woman at the Sushi House because of how she treated you."

"Are you sure?" I asked. I was almost in a state of shock.

"You know that Leroy guy?" He asked.

"What about him?" I asked.

"If you had been acting like a Deceiver, you'd know he was a rapist. He raped indiscriminately," he said. "Sue found him fondling a kid named Tyrese. When she saw it, she used her inherited gifts, dragged him into the field, and killed him."

"You found all that out by probing her mind?" I asked.

"Yeah," he said, "Listen! I don't have any proof that her having a soul makes a difference. She's like a huge drug dealer."

"It's true," Peppermint said.

"Wait! She has a soul, so that makes her better, right?" I asked.

"I don't think so, Mister Ryan," Peppermint said, "People kill all the time, and they have souls."

"I don't know about all this," I said softly. "We're talking about my Sue."

"Honestly, you need to look back on your life," he said with a grimace. "She didn't wake up one day, and start killing. I can promise you that. She was controlling you so your pops stepped into your relationship, and ran her off."

"Seriously?" I said, "There's no way."

JJ chuckled, and then said, "You're a fucking Deceiver. Do your own damn research. Oh, you best talk to your father about Moxia too." He paused for a moment, and then said, "You know what? Forget it. You're too much of a woosy."

I became so enraged that I lunged at JJ without thinking about his powers, and he threw me against the wall with the power of his mind. Peppermint started laughing out loud, and said, "This guy!"

"I know, right!" Vera said. She leaped off the bed, and started singing, "Whoop! Whoop that ass!" Repeatedly, and I thought I was in an episode of the Twilight Zone. I should have known she'd be the worse one of them all because she was running with gods like they were high school chums.

He then flung me into the hallway, and was laughing the whole time, and dancing to Vera's singing as he pushed me around in the hallway with his mind. Walking into the hallway, the powerful godlike kid grabbed me by the neck, and when I tried to go into his mind to knock him out, he entered my mind. "You should have been practicing your powers, idiot." I couldn't circumvent his intrusion. It was a form of mind rape, and I couldn't resist his powerful brain, especially with his fiancee and friend singing about my beatdown. "I'm going to show you everything I know, Deceiver." Without hesitation, he unloaded everything he knew about Sue's past into my head, and the data was raw, revealing, and it scared me to my core. Not only did he give me information about Sue, he gave me information about everything I needed. I felt overwhelmed by it all because a million years of knowledge came to me all at once.

"I've been the fool," I said with a grimace. As I sat on my knees in the middle of the hallway, Peppermint and Vera walked out the room with a stack of my books.

"You promised," Peppermint said as she placed the books on the ground in front of me.

"You want me to sign all these?" I asked. JJ sat against the wall next to his room, and he had an evil grin on his face. "It's all my books!"

"Yeah," Peppermint said. "Get to signing or we'll be beatin' that ass Little Africa Style." She paused for a moment, and then said, "Make sure you put to your favorite Asian girl."

"What Peppermint wants Peppermint gets, Mister Ryan. If you get a cramp in your right hand, then sign with your left hand.

"That's right," Vera said with her arms folded as she stood over me.

"You guys are crazy," Mister Ryan said, "Horrible kids."

"I'm not going to disagree with you," JJ said, "But at the same time, you have some decisions to make."

"Maybe some of this information is wrong. Maybe it's her fantasies," I said. "Is it possible?"

According to the information, she killed two Asian girls when she was in Vietnam, and ran with a dangerous gang while she lived in Vietnam.

"Is it possible?" He asked. "I suppose. Mister Ryan, when telepaths talk telepathically, the thoughts are clear and concise. When we talk to non-telepaths, we're reading their thoughts. The human mind is often unfocused, and they have a series of random thoughts running through their minds. It's our job to decipher the subject's true meaning. Sue's a telepath now."

"Because of me," I said.

"That's right. I read the mind of a telepath. Her thoughts were focused," he said, "You can't ignore what I've told you. I mean she's a damn drug dealer. I'm talking about that kind who has a body count."

When I finished signing all the books, Peppermint and Vera picked them off the floor, and then Peppermint said, "Sweet."

"Mister Ryan, take care of yourself," he said, "I know you're a good man, but I'm going to need a Deceiver to stop the Moxian Civil War. It's time to be the hero you were meant to be."


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

When JJ filled my mind with his thoughts, I saw he met my father, Tre La Ryan, a few months earlier, and it made me nervous. I thought it was odd of him to engage me in such a way, but I immediately knew he was letting me know that he knew, that his memory had been restored. He brought Michael Hall to Ptah's Covenant, the name we used for my race while home, and he was of the bloodline of the Holy Prophets. I feared for Michael Hall, a man that I didn't know at all because the glove had its own conscience, the concept of right or wrong, and when it detected a threat, it could override the user's mind, and kill at will. Apparently, the Vulcan knew about the glove's abilities from his time on his homeworld and wanted me to know it was activated.

A Little History of Ptah…

The Great Mother made the Glove of Darkness for a specific bloodline nearly eight hundred thousand years ago to fight against the Time God, Cronus Zeus. Cronus-Zeus allied with the Guardians of Oa and fought against Luciferous, Ptah, and the Great Mother over the resources on Earth. When the Great Mother defeated her children, the Guardians of Oa persuaded a trusted ally, Hermes the Speedster to turn against Ptah, his trusted brother. The betrayal pained Ptah so much that he created a prison called the Speed Force to contain his brother for a thousand years. During that time, Luciferous absconded to the sun after the death of one of his mortal wives, the Green Witch, and it hurled his first wife, Sayd, into madness, and she teamed up with her brothers, The Guardians of Oa, to take out the Great Mother. Sayd's betrayal broke the Great Mother's heart, and she couldn't stand to be around anybody. The legend said Ptah did everything to cheer up the Great Mother, but nothing worked. He even lured her into the Garden, took the form of a dragon, and seduced her, but when she found out it was Ptah in disguised, it broke her heart because he was already betrothed to another. He became dismayed over his actions in the garden because he furthered the Great Mother's grief.

After about five hundred years of Hermes' imprisonment in the Speed Force, Ptah came to visit him. The Speedster had grown bitter and hated his older brother. But unbeknown to the creator of the new reality, a humanlike creature came to life inside of the nascent world, and when Ptah saw it, he hastily claimed ownership of the new lifeform. According to legend, she had an aura about her that made Ptah weak, and he lusted after the creature. He tried to resist the temptation to seduce her, but it was hard for him because his first wife, Lula, had denied him intimacy for nearly one hundred years.

When he saw the blackened creature in the Speed Force, she appeared to him like an ebony marble, and he found her to be beautiful like the night sky. The creature trembled at his touch because it knew of his lustful desires. The being possessed telepathic powers like the gods, and it delved deeply into the mind of Ptah. When he freed the creature from the Speed Force, it tried to escape from his presences by entering into his mind while he slept but she wasn't able to subdue the powerful god. Every night, she'd go into his mind while he slept, and he'd trap her mind in his and seduce her on a mental level. Even though the fight would leave her drained, she believed her willpower would eventually erode Ptah's strength, but it never did.

The creature mentally raped Ptah for seven years in the hopes that it would weaken him, but it never did. In turn, he'd use the mental intrusion as a way to seduce her. But when Ptah went into battle against his brothers and sister in the Dark Corridor, they defeated him over the planet of Moxia. It was a bloody battle that left thousands of low-level gods dead. When he returned to Earth, he was bruised, beaten, and he blamed the creature for his predicament. He called her the succubus, and for her punishment, he raped her in the dark dungeons of his kingdom. All the pain of losing his soldiers weighed heavy on his heart, and he relieved himself in his succubus. He raped her every day, and on the eighth month of her pregnancy, she said, "You may control my body, Lord Ptah, but you don't control my mind, and you'll never be able to control my children. They will grow to hate you, defy you, and deceive you." Over the years, Ptah had fourteen offspring with the succubus, and she had spent fifty years deceiving him into believing she was his for the keeping. He thought she was tied to him forever, and that she had learned to accept her position in the world. He even told her he would never let her go. On her seventy-fifth birthday, she drank some ambrosia that Ptah had made, and due to the properties of the drink, it made her vulnerable. She drank as much ambrosia as her body would hold, and when Ptah raped her one last time, she stabbed herself in the stomach with his golden dagger and died.

Ptah ran to the Great Mother with her body and begged her to restore his abused, paramour's lifeforce, but she said, "By reviving her, I would be condoning what you did to the poor creature. I won't bring her back because you abused what you created. What do you plan on doing with her offspring?"

"I thought I would let them run wild in the garden, feed on the flesh of unicorns, and wash in the Holy River," he said, "Maybe let them mix their seed with those vile creatures you call humans."

"The humans have no telepathic capabilities. They only live about thirty years," she said, "You shouldn't interfere with humanity's progress by putting them with superior creatures."

"Perhaps I can take a group of humans and set them apart from their race, and have them breed with my offspring," he said, "I believe we can form a race who thinks like the gods. We'll need a race of beings who can spy on governments around the universe less we endure another uprising like your precious Kryptonians caused."

"Do as you please," she said, "But you won't like the outcome."

Ptah buried his paramour near the Holy River, and after he washed his feet, fed on some unicorn flesh, and walked the garden, he wanted to relieve some pressure with his wife, Lula. In his palace, she lay in her chambers in a nice, black gown, and he entered the room nude.

"I don't want to make love to you. Ever!" She screamed. He climbed in bed with her anyway, and when he noticed that she had been drinking ambrosia the entire day, he placed his hands around her neck and killed her. Immediately, the Great Mother realized what he had done, and banished him into the Speed Force for six thousand years.

When he returned from his imprisonment, according to the Deceiver's legends, Ptah ruled over his people with an iron fist, and even when his descendants begged him to stay out of their business, he wouldn't. Cronos-Zeus attacked Earth for the third time, and the Deceivers fought with Ptah against him, but he took notice of a young, warrior princess by the name of Sekhmet. She was a beautiful, young maiden that he took an immediate liking too, and she was of the Deceiver race. She fought beside Ptah during the war.

The Great Mother designed the God Glove and selected a specified family to wear it. After Ptah and the Great Mother defeated Cronus-Zeus, the Deceivers brought the wearer of the glove into their ranks. Often, Ptah crept into the Deceiver's village to bed Sekhmet, and it dismayed the Elders so badly that they kicked her out of the village. When Ptah found her wandering the garden without any security, he became enraged. At first, he thought about killing all the Elders, but his beloved begged him not to do that while they drank ambrosia and ate unicorn meat. Instead, he inflicted them with a severe case of hemorrhoids, and it was so bad that they promised never to put another maiden out the village without an escort.

Deceivers lived for approximately three hundred years, but gods were immortal, and Ptah was already over a million years old. But when Sekhmet was in her hundredth year of life, he noticed a strand of gray hair mixed in with her black hair, and he spent the whole night crying over it. He ran to the Great Mother over his problem. He wanted to take her through an apotheosis that would elevate her to his level. After she thought about it, she built a potion that elevated Sekhmet to the rank of a god, and Ptah became a calm leader who ruled with a just hand.

After the Great Mother left Earth, Ptah lived in the midst of his people and had his way with the young women while his wife was at home pregnant. Every time a girl came of age, he would have his way with her until he tried to seduce a Holy Prophet wearing the glove. She grabbed him by the throat and tried to control him with the supernatural powers of the glove, and even though he broke free, he didn't hurt her. He listened to his descendants and gave them a one hundred thousand year reprieve from him. During that time, he grew closer to Sekhmet in the Celestial Kingdom that floated above Central Africa.

I grew up with these stories, and in a way, I felt sorry for JJ because he was Ptah now and he carried the godspark inside of him. But I felt bad for Michael Hall because almost every wielder of the glove died of suicide. One of the side effects of the glove was severe depression and the last holder of the weapon cut his own neck in Gotham. In order to remove the glove, a ritual had to be performed, and then the wielder lived the rest of their life in the Celestial Kingdom. The glove stayed with the user until death, and if the recipient somehow escaped the Glove of Darkness (GOD) before death, then they would beg to die without it unless they resided in the Celestial Kingdom.

The glove elevated the user into a god, but when mortals obtained that much power, it was usually devastating in the end. The Great Mother-according to legend-did that on purpose because she didn't want anyone user to have the glove over twenty years. Once a user decided to enter into the Celestial Kingdom, the glove returned to Ptah's Covenant until the next Holy Prophet called it.

I walked down the street to Sue's Bistro, and a lot of things weighed on my soul. It was now Friday evening, a little after six o'clock, and Sue sat outside her restaurant with Thong. I walked up to them, and she gave me a slight smile.

"Thong, go inside and eat," Sue said with a smile. "Your father and I must talk seriously."

Thong looked over at me, and then I agreed with Sue. He took his bowl of Pho into the bistro, and then I looked directly at Sue, and asked, "You killed Leroy?"

She stared at her soup for a moment, and said, "He molested so many boys in the neighborhood." She nodded at me like she expected me to speak. "I didn't know until I read his thoughts. I saw his dreams about Thong. I lost my mind over that."

"What did you see?" I asked calmly.

"It's not worth repeating," she said. "I did what I did for Tyrese, Thong, and all the little boys in the neighborhood."

"What about the Asian girls back in Vietnam?" I asked. "Why did you kill them?"

She paused for a moment, and then said, "I see. The Vulcan read my mind. I felt him digging around. I couldn't stop him, but it's okay. You would've eventually found out."

"You only told me about your brother being in the gang, Sue," I said.

"It is what it is," she said, "All you had to do was read my thoughts, and you would've known. Your ignorance of my background is your own fault."

"Why did you kill, Pete Dog?" I asked. She pulled a joint out of her shirt pocket and lit it up. I took a drag off of it, and said, "It's not the good stuff."

"It's dirt," she said with a grimace. "My store only has about one hundred customers a day. It's barely enough to make ends meet." She stood up and looked me in the eyes. "I gave Pete one thousand grams of high-quality weed. I received word from my sources that he's selling this weak shit."

"You're a drug dealer?" I asked as my heart sank into my stomach.

"Yes," she said, "It is what it is. Anyway, I asked Pete Dog what happened to my weed, and he tried to get uppity with me. He stole my weed. I stole his life." I couldn't believe what I was hearing. She looked at me and chuckled for a moment. "I guess the wedding's off."

"You're not who I thought you were, Sue," I said, "I'm sorry."

"It's okay," she said, "All good things must come to an end."


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

Thong sat on the couch, read for awhile, and then fell asleep in place. I sat at my computer, thought about Sue, and decided to write another Romance Novel called "Lies." The Vulcan called me a woosy because I made the conscious decision not to enter into the minds of other people, but I thought a person's thoughts were private. Besides, everybody in the world had a set of memories based on their lives. Some people endured abuse their whole life, and when they thought about their abuse, they didn't always view the abuser in a negative light. When a Deceiver entered into the mind of a victim of abuse, he absorbed the victim's feelings on the matter. I didn't like that at all. I tried not to enter into a mind unwelcomed, but the number of abused people in Freeland alone was off the charts.

I had already made up my mind that I would be with Sue at the Carnival, but at the same time, I had some reservations. Honestly, after all my training with the Deceivers and the League of Assassins, I didn't know the first thing about protecting my heart. My mind kept playing with the idea that I could redeem my ex-wife, that I could undo what years of corruption did. She admitted that she hurt people, sold drugs, and killed people for stealing her drugs. No matter how hard I tried I couldn't wrap my mind around the idea that my ex-wife killed people.

I made some Ramen Noodles for Thong with some Kimchi as a side dish. I woke him up off the couch, and he enjoyed the meal. It was truly tasty, and we ate it all the time. It wasn't a traditional Vietnamese treat, but we enjoyed it nonetheless.

The Carnival was fast approaching, and all I had to do was sit by Sue while our son ate cotton candy and popcorn. I didn't have to be intimate with her. I think my main issue was I didn't know how to tell Thong that his momma wouldn't be a major part of his life. I took care of him for ten years without her, but at the same time, I knew he desired to be in his momma's life. In a certain way, I felt like I was being too harsh on her. Maybe the reason I had a hard time accepting Sue was that I put her on a pedestal all those years. I accidentally turned her into a princess in my mind.

Thong sat on the opposite end of the table, ate his Ramen while looking at a movie on his tablet computer. I looked at him for a moment and thought about the horrors of drug addiction in the community. Honestly, I didn't consider cannabis as an actual drug like I did with Green Light. I read over a status report on Garfield High and the drug culture, and from what Mister Pierce put in his report, it looked like Green Light had already wiggled its way into the hallways of the school. According to his report, the drug consisted of PCP and crack cocaine, and after one hit, the user was automatically addicted. Unfortunately, I hadn't seen one segment about the drug on the local or national news feed.

With the way the drugs infiltrated Freeland, I believed the cops were involved. In fact, I'm almost sure the cops were involved with putting the drugs on the street. I've asked myself a million times what would happen if guns, drugs, and alcohol weren't flowing freely through the community. We wouldn't need cops if not for all the alcoholism happening in the city. I helped form the committee that investigated Downing Chemical, and I still don't know who dumped all the waste on the fringes of Freeland. I fear that one day none of the water in the area will be viable for consumption. I've studied the national average on cancer rates, and we're like fifteen points over the national average.

I thought about asking my father to intervene in Freeland's problems, but I knew he wouldn't use his resources to help out such a dismal town. Besides, Freeland was the responsibility of the United States, and if drugs, guns, and chemical waste infected the town, then it was because the government wanted drugs, guns, and chemical waste to infect the town. It was really that simple.

It was around ten o'clock in the evening when I put Thong to bed, and he looked at me while I stood next to the door of his room. "I was hoping you still loved momma. I was hoping we'll be a family," he said softly.

I always tried to be honest with my son, but in this case, it was hard. The relationship between Sue and I was brittle like ceramic tiles. "Sue and I won't get back together, son. She's a lot different than the woman I once married."

He pulled the covers over his head and didn't say anything else to me. When I turned out the lights to his room, he said, "Bye" in the cruelest way possible. I didn't know how to react to his terse language. I decided to go back to the living room, watch a little television, and possibly cook some popcorn. It was completely dark outside, but early for the club, and I thought about heading to Metropolis where they had clubs for people above the age of thirty. I didn't enjoy partying with a bunch of people in their twenties because they often liked to start fights. I wanted to be around a more mature crowd, and Metropolis had clubs where older people partied.

I went back to Thong's room, took him to my Jeep, and we drove to Metropolis to my second home. I often stayed in my apartment complex because I enjoyed living in Freeland. When I actually thought about it, I only lived in Freeland because Sue's Bistro was right down the street from my apartment building. I think I need to be honest about that. But at the same time, I planned on doing a little drinking, and I couldn't afford to leave my son by himself for too long. When I walked into my second home, I turned off the alarm, and then placed him in his bed.

"Are we going to stay in Metropolis for now on?" Thong asked with a grimace.

"I'm thinking about it," I said with a smile. "I still love your momma, but we've grown too far apart, son. It's just that simple."

I put on my nice, black suit, some shiny shoes, and walked to an uppity club on the southside of Metropolis. The Star Nightclub was located in a tall, three-story building. When I first purchased my Metropolis home, I visited the place a few times, but I didn't engage any of the women. I sat back, relaxed, and had a few drinks.

The club was painted black and had Star Nightclub written in bold letters on the front of it. The line to get into the club stretched all the way around the building, and people of all calibers paid a lot of money to enter. I stood in the back of the long line for a moment but grew tired of the wait. When I walked up to the bouncer, I deceived his mind by making him think I was a very important person. He waved me into the club like I owned the place.

I walked up to the bar, ordered a few drinks for my table, and took a seat. From the looks of it, I believe the majority of people in the club were between thirty and forty. Every now and again, and often, a lady strolled by my table, smiled, but never sat with me. Honestly, I was tormented because of all the skinny girls, with skinny ideals of beauty, and full of skinny dreams. I hated that every magazine, television show, and media outlet told all the women in the club that skinny was the ideal woman. The Asian girls were too skinny. The black girls were too skinny. The white girls were too skinny. Every girl was too skinny. It was nearly one o'clock in the morning, and I knew I had to get up for the Carnival. I drank my last drink when a frumpy Asian girl walked into the bar. She wore a white dress that traveled past her knees. She wasn't fat or skinny, but a nice in between the two.

She sat with a group of Asian girls on the other side of the room. I saw her from the time she came through the front door, over to the bar, and then sat in a booth across the floor. She had a frumpy, very Asian boxy look that I loved. Her shoulder length, rich black hair was cut in a bowl style, but long in the back. She probably didn't have an opportunity to rest her feet before I interrupted her. As soon as she sat down, I headed straight for her table like she was my favorite person on the planet. When I stood in front of her table, she immediately put up her left hand to stop me where I stood.

"Listen, I'm just here for a few drinks. I know you're into FAGS, but I'm just here to relax," she said, "I'm not here to entertain you."

I almost started laughing, but I didn't. I simply walked out the club, down the street, and over to my house. When she referred to herself as a FAG, that almost made me laugh because that was the name I coined for frumpy Asian girl in my first seven books. In twenty ten, when some of my literature grew in popularity on American soil, the LGBT community attacked me over the word. I received multiple death threats from people screaming, "That's our word." Often, I heard Asian students referring to themselves as FAGs when I taught classes at the community college. Unfortunately, the same word that the Asians loved ended my college teaching career because the LGBT community said I was being insensitive.

I stopped using the word after I wrote my seventh book because I had time to reflect on the issue. At first, I merely thought the LGBT community was picking on me, but after I sat in on a meeting over the word, I understood the pain I caused them. In my last three books, I made sure to scrub any mention of the word out of my literature, but since the books were a phenomenon in Asia, the term spread like the flu.

I remembered going to the Star Nightclub many times just to drink, but never to find a suitable mate, and now that I think about it, I made a stupid move. I'm not sure what I was thinking because my mind wouldn't allow me to fall in love with a girl I met in the club.

The next morning…

I fed Thong some orange juice, bacon, eggs, and toast on the morning of the Carnival, and for some strange reason, he decided to wear his all black, shorts-pants suit. He looked like a Blasian Eddie Munster when he came to the breakfast table. We ate breakfast in our Metropolis home, and then I dressed in a relaxing business suit. We traveled back to the slums, checked on the apartment building, and then walked down the street to the Carnival. It was about nine o'clock in the morning when I came upon a badly damaged car with a body on the side of it. Immediately, I called the police about the situation and sent Thong ahead to the Carnival.

Due to my telepathic powers, I had the ability to enter the mind of a dead person for up to three days after death. I looked at him for a moment, and then when I went into the young man's mind, I saw him put a bullet in the back of a kid's head. I ascertained that his name was Ray Jenkins, but everybody referred to him as Ray Ray. In addition, I saw that he pulled a gun on a kid named, Bay, a metahuman with great powers. It looked like Bay struck the vehicle with his fist, and caused the young man's death. It was a case of self-defense, and when the police arrived on the scene, they quickly cleaned it up and didn't ask me any questions.

Later in the morning…

When I entered the park, it was pretty much-jammed pack with people standing in front of the stage. I approached Sue's booth, and she was explaining to Jennifer Pierce, the youngest daughter of Jefferson Pierce, about being the girl in all my books. I never asked her what she thought about my books, but I could tell she enjoyed telling people she was the girl in all my works. Apparently, the young woman didn't believe my ex-wife, so I confirmed it.

"Yeah. All my books are about her," I said. Of course, she looked somewhat befuddled about it, but beauty was one of those subjective things. My wife was the epitome of the frumpy Asian girl, and I thought she was beautiful, but when I discussed her beauty, it wasn't to demean the beauty of other women.

In my college years, I received a lot of gripes over dating Sue from other Asian women. When I talked about how pretty she was to me, I had more than a few Asian women ask, "Are you high?" One petite Asian girl said, "There are two types of Asians: big head Asians and small head Asians. You're in love with a big head Asian." That offended me because until this very day I looked at Sue, and I don't see her as a big head or a small head Asian, I only see her as the beautiful girl I married, that I loved, and that my father forced to leave me. After Jennifer walked over to the cotton candy machine, I looked at Sue for a moment and laughed.

"What?" She asked.

"I was just remembering that time you told me there are two types of Asian girls," I said.

"Yeah. I'm a big head Asian girl," she replied.

"Yeah. I still find that offensive," I said.

Suddenly, a tingle happened in my mind, and then JJ spoke to me. "I'm about to take Peppermint to the hospital after this last song, but I will still be in Freeland for a few more days. Don't worry about talking to your father. I will discuss Moxia with him."

"Okay," I said telepathically. It amazed me that the gothic rocker spoke to me telepathically while singing at the same time, and didn't miss a beat. Right after his friend, Vera, sang, "Like a Virgin," he told Freeland that he loved them, but his fiancee was about to go into labor. On Sue's Asian scale from big and small heads, Peppermint was a small head Asian girl. According to Sue, a medium sized Asian head didn't exist.

I looked around for a moment and saw Thong through the crowd of people. He was wearing his Eddie Munster's uniform and smacking on some cotton candy. "Look at our boy. He's eating way too much candy."

"Let him have his fun, Nick," She said. "You're such a curmudgeon when it comes to him." She kind of laughed for a moment. "He doesn't need so many constraints."

"He's top in his classes at his school," I said with a smile. "I'm an excellent parent."

"Our boy is an A student?" She asked.

"Yep," I said.

I sat in Sue's booth for a moment, listened to the high school rock band play, and they had a nice sound, but they weren't anything like JJ. He played like he actually owned the stage. But the band from Garland High played like they were renting the stage, and the rent payment was late. Sue was so busy selling Malcolm X t-shirts that she didn't have time to talk. Besides, I was too busy using my Thong-dar to think about Sue. Everywhere my son went, my eyes locked on that general area to make sure he was okay. That boy purchased three caramel apples, and I almost hopped up to confront him about it, but he gave one to me and one to his momma. "Thank you, son."

"You're welcome, daddy," he said with a smile. He wandered back into the crowd, and I kind of laughed for a moment. I actually thought he planned on eating three caramel apples. He wasn't a big kid, but when it came to candy, he didn't have any self-control.

I loved caramel apples, and the ones at the carnival tasted great. Something grabbed Sue's attention, and I automatically looked over to make sure Thong was okay, and it was that kid, Bay, with a group of other guys. He looked somewhat distraught as he walked with several rough looking young men. I saw what the young boy could do, and I felt sorry for anybody who tried to roughhouse him. He had the ability to punch through a tank. They appeared to be leaving the park, and about a minute after they meandered down the road, Jennifer left.

"I'll be right back," I said, "Please watch out for our son." I ran across the street, into an alley, and then I leaped into the air and flew over the neighborhood. Rarely, I took flight because I wanted to live my life as a normal, everyday black man, with a normal, everyday black man haircut, with a normal, everyday black man house, and do normal, everyday black man things. If I flew around the city, I wasn't being normal. If I read a person's mind, I wasn't being normal. If I lived as a Deceiver, then I lived apart from the black experience, and that wasn't normal. I landed on top of my apartment complex, peered down at the action on the ground, and I saw the gangster shoot Bay in the chest. The action happened so fast that I didn't have time to react. Jennifer lit up the entire area with an electrical current that came from her fingers, and she did it twice. I felt so badly for Bay until he climbed back to his feet. When I looked at him for a moment, a smidgen of deja vu hit me. I lay on the roof in the supine position and thought through some things. Supergirl, Superman, and Vulcan can actually take a powerful blow, and it not hurt them. But over one hundred and twenty years ago, another super being existed named John Henry. When he stood between man and machine, the Deceivers stepped in and poisoned him. He had several children, but his bloodline went into obscurity through the years. The Deceivers feared that one day his bloodline would compete with their bloodline, and cause a war. So, they used their abilities to kill the man, and if Bay was of that bloodline, it meant the prophecy had a chance of coming true.

I flew back, landed a block away, and then walked over to the park. I was only gone for a few hours, but the police crept into the area in full combat gear. Once I entered the park, I noticed hundreds of cops intermingled with the crowd while wearing their police uniforms. I'm not sure who decided cops roaming the grounds in tactical gear was a good idea, but it wasn't. In fact, it was disrespectful to the entire event. It was shameful that the Freeland government treated black people like animals, especially when everybody was having a good time.

When I sat in Sue's booth, I noticed Thong stood directly behind two Lanterns. It had been a while-some twenty years since I met a Lantern personally. As I was about to enter into the mind of the woman Lantern, JJ flooded me with information about the birth of his child. It caught me completely off guard, but I felt his joy like it was the birth of my own son. When I looked over at Jennifer and Bay, they absconded from the park, and I thought it had to do with the amount of police presence. Thong ran over to me, and asked, "Can I have one hundred dollars?"

I looked at him for a moment, and asked, "What happened to the one hundred I gave you this morning?" He looked at me with his almond-shaped eyes for a moment, and then I looked past him and saw all the little kids eating candy apples. "How can I enjoy a candy apple when so many people around me who can't afford to have one?"


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter Twelve

I ran over to Bang Bang Burgers and picked up three JBBs or Juicy Bang Burgers with Firecracker Fries that were actually fried sweet potatoes with three cups of sweet, Bang Bang Sauce. Thong asked me to get him a Graveyard Shake, which was a chocolate shake with a thick, deep chocolate brownie on top. We sat at Sue's booth, enjoyed our food, and watched the people flow into the area. Honestly, people were having so much fun that I don't think anybody was leaving. When the announcement of James JJ. Johnson Junior's birth happened, the crowd went into an uproar and started chanting his name. Every year, for the last four years, he sang for the crowd. They loved JJ.

I don't know what I was thinking when I bought three JBBs because after I bit into my burger, I was already full. Who needed a triple meat patty burger in the first place? I only ate breakfast, the caramel apple, and now it was almost five o'clock in the afternoon, and I felt defeated by the triple meat burger in front of me. I looked over at Thong, and he was choking his triple meat burger down like it was nothing.

"This is barely enough," he said with a mouth full of food. He took another bite of his JBB as an affront to my manhood.

I took the third bite out of my JBB, and I actually thought about faking an illness because I wasn't going to be able to finish. My son sat next to me and kept chewing and chewing, and then he started in on his shake. I still had a full Graveyard Shake, and Thong was shoveling the burger and fries in his mouth like he was eating the baby meal. "Boy, you shouldn't eat so fast!"

"What's wrong, Daddy? You can't hang?" He laughed. "It feels good to be eating as a family, doesn't it?"

"That's right," Sue said in agreement. "I hope we can have more dinners together."

Suddenly, I realized that maybe I made a mistake eating with my wife and son, and also spending all day with her because the signals were mixed. During our college years, I never had one reservation about her. But now, I don't think I can move past the fact that she killed a man over drug money.

In the background, I heard several police sirens blurring loudly. I only ate half of my burger, and then started on my shake. The hospital was only about a mile from the park, and it looked like legions of cop cars headed that way. The police officers in the park talked into their radios, and most of them headed out of the park. I didn't know what could cause so many officers to leave that fast.

"Eight officers down!" Exclaimed one of the cops. "The suspect is a metahuman. His name is Bay Nelson."

I saw Jefferson Pierce dancing in the middle of the field with a group of other people, and then I walked over to him. When I tapped him on the shoulder, he quickly turned to me. "You need to get to the hospital."

"Why? What's going on?" He asked.

"I don't know the full story, but the cops are searching for a young man your daughter was with. He killed eight cops."

"Dear, God," he said with a grimace. "Immediately he ran out of the park, and I ran to the other side of the street, behind some houses. Most of the people in Freeland attended the Carnival, and I hoped they remained focused on the music. I didn't have a fancy costume like some of the other superheroes. The smell of barbeque permeated throughout the entire area. I looked down at the ground for a moment and then took flight. When I looked down at the ground, I saw tons of cops scouring the neighborhoods. Once I landed on top of the medical facility, I could hear the cops through the walls cursing the young woman.

Emergency Room…

I ran into the emergency room, and JJ stood next to the vending machines by the end of the hallway caring a black box. He was way over six-feet tall, but I could tell he was just a kid. He looked me in the face, and said, "It's bad. Real bad."

"Yes. I heard Bay took out eight cops," I said.

"No. That's not the bad part," he said, "Something has changed the timeline. We're off course. Way off course."

I looked at him for a moment, and then asked, "What do you mean?"

"I mean time," he said. He walked over to the newspaper machine, and pulled out one, and then said, "Read article three."

The article had to do with more deaths than births in the United States, and around the world. At first, it didn't seem like a huge problem.

"Bay's momma is Doctor Gina Nelson," he said, "The cops shot her, and she died right after arriving at the hospital. She also had stage four cervical cancer. According to Orion, my Doraxian Palm Computer, she wasn't supposed to die until twenty seventy. It's her work that saved millions in the future."

"Why did they shoot her?" I asked. "That's insane."

"I believe that Bay found her convulsing, and tried to rush her to the hospital," he said, "I read some of Jennifer's thoughts, and that's what I surmised from all the madness going on in her head. Listen, whatever happens, you should get your boy home as soon as possible. The cops are riled up. To them, every black boy looks like Bay."

Moments later…

I ran out to the parking lot of the hospital, and Jefferson Pierce walked with his daughter to his car. She appeared to be okay physically, but I didn't know how she might be on the mental level. When I walked across the street, I saw a cop roll past me, and then he slammed on the breaks. It was now dark outside, and the cop in the passenger seat stepped out of the car. Grimacing, he walked over to me and told me to stand where he could see my hands.

I tried to position my hands, and then I heard Sue scream telepathically, and I flinched. "You killed my boy!"

I panicked. I didn't know what she meant. "Let me see your hands, shit skin!" The cop screamed at the top of his lungs. He was enraged over the death of his comrades, and then when he threw me into the cop car, I hit the top of it face first. When I tried to enter Thong's mind, all I felt was the pain, and then I began to panic. I felt blood pouring down my face, and into my eyes. When I reached up to wipe the blood off my face, the cop put the barrel of his gun against my forehead, and screamed, "If you move again, shit skin, I will kill your monkey ass." But at the same time, I was in a state of shock. I sensed my son's pain, and I needed to get to him.

His partner stood on the other side of me while he kicked my legs apart. I tried to maintain my composure, but it was hard. "Listen, Thong," I said telepathically. "Think to me." I used a mental deception technique called the mirage where it allowed an image of myself to stand in my place while I continued my journey down the street. I had stepped away while the cop had his gun pointed to an image of me, and then I made the image reach for the cops gun, and he ended up shooting his partner multiple times in the face.

"What have I done?" He screamed. He looked over at me, pointed his gun at me, and then I went into his mind. Slowly, he placed the gun behind his left ear, pulled the trigger, and blood shot directly into the air. I looked at him as he convulsed in the middle of the street and then flew back over to the park where the cops began their harassment of all the black men in the crowd. They had stopped the music, and had most of the black men, young and old, on the ground in the entire park.

I looked around for my son, and several cops stood over him as he lay on the ground dying. The rage inside of me was hidden like a deadly snake all my life, but it was there. I spent my life trying to be the calm son, and when I saw the cops hovering over my child's body, something inside of me snapped. That image of my child dead on the ground made an indelible mark on my soul. I looked over at Sue's booth, and it was completely emptied. I didn't see her anywhere in the park.

"Why are you doing this?" A young man asked. "We're just trying to have a good time. You have us laying on the ground like animals! You killed Mister Ryan's kid!"

"Shut the fuck up!" The cop exclaimed as he had his weapon by his side. "The damn punk kid shouldn't have tried to run."

"Shoot yourself," I whispered softly. The cop raised his weapon to his forehead, and his hands began to shake like another force was stopping him from obeying my command. I didn't realize he had the power to resist my powers, so I tried harder to make him shoot himself. I wanted all the cops dead for taking my boy, and nothing was going to stand in the way of my revenge.

"Quit!" JJ said to me telepathically. "Release him."

"He killed my boy," I replied telepathically. "If you saw what he did…"

'You're a freaking Deceiver," he said, "Deceive the cops into leaving, and bring the boy to me."

I was so angry that I wanted to kill them all for violating the rights of American citizens. Everybody in the park had the right to go about their day without being tormented by the cops. And now I had to experience the loss of my only offspring, the one person that I loved with all my heart. And according to the radio broadcast, Bay was the one who killed the eight cops. Before I had a chance to do anything, JJ must have already done it for me because the cops abruptly left.

Back at the Hospital…

I raced into the emergency room with Thong, and JJ met me at the entrance way with the black box in his right hand. He took me into an unoccupied room on the first floor. My son wasn't breathing at all, but that didn't stop JJ from doing what needed to be done. I paced back and forth, and to be honest, I feared for Sue in the process as well. The cops took her only boy in front of her eyes, and I know she wasn't going to take it well. I tried several times to enter into her mind, but she blocked me. Since I brought her back to life with the Lazarus Pit and with my blood, she was able to perform the same feats as any Deceiver.

JJ placed an electronic device on Thong's belly, and then he looked back at me and said, "The bullet went clean through."

"Narcotizing the patient," the computer said.

What only took twenty minutes felt like twenty hours for me, and when Thong called out to me, I was elated beyond belief. I held him so close to me that I didn't want to let go. "Get him home. To your Metropolis home because this place is a powderkeg," JJ said with a grimace.

I watched the young man place his instrument back into the case, and then he walked out of the room. Before I took Thong home, I dropped by Sue's Bistro to tell her that our boy was okay, but I didn't see her. I looked around the entire area, but I didn't see any sign of her.

"Daddy, is Momma okay?" He asked with a concerned look on his face.

I tried to find my comforting voice, but I didn't know exactly what to say, "I think she'll be okay."

Late in the evening….

After I took my boy to our Metropolis home, he looked at me for a moment, and said, "Please go find my Momma."


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

It was late in the evening when I went to complain about how the cops treated the black people of Freeland. I saw them repeatedly shoving their guns in the faces of the youth. Cars raced up and down the street, and it made me nervous. Every now and again, and more than once in awhile, I heard screams coming from down the street. The police chased two girls across the roadway, and then out of nowhere, another cop car came upon the scene. He was a large dark skinned cop with an angry visage. The high and tight haircut almost gave him a military appearance. The cop exited the vehicle with his gun drawn, fired several rounds at the two teenage girls, but missed them.

I hated the police in my heart because they systematically wrecked the neighborhood. I don't recall hating them this morning. I didn't recall hating cops until I saw the one standing with his right foot on my dead son's chest. He acted like he shot a big game animal in the middle of the rainforest. Even though, I know JJ saved my son with his advanced technology, I still carried the image of his death in my mind.

"Go on the other side of the building, Dan," the black officer screamed, "If you see them, don't hesitate to shoot them."

The cops of all hues preyed on the citizens of Freeland like animals, and as far as I knew, it was all lawful. When the large, dark-skinned cop ran around the building, I tripped him with my telekinesis, and he fell face down on the ground. With the fumble, I thought it gave an opportunity for the teenagers to get away from the abusive cop. I continued my trek down the road.

One of the cops pulled up beside me. His blond hair was loud because it was bleach-dyed blonde. It was completely against regulations, but he didn't care. He didn't have to obey the rules like the rest of Freeland's citizenry. We had eye contact, and it was an uncomfortable eye contact, the kind of look that was threatening in every way imaginable. He asked, "Where the fuck are you going? You're supposed to be off the street. There's a damn curfew in effect." I looked at him for a moment, and when our eyes met, he said, "I'll rip your eyeballs out your sockets if you keep eyeballing me."

I tried my best to maintain control of my situation, but I have to be honest, I'm not that big of a man. Since I came to the United States, I've always read the right thing to do was turn the other cheek. I grew up in another world called Pearl City, and I'm a child in Ptah's Covenant. It isn't in my nature to merely turn the other cheek when threatened. And since I was a Deceiver, I knew I had to teach the officer a lesson. Quickly, I went into his mind and deceived him into believing his wife killed his children. I put into his mind that she choked them to death while they slept. I made the dream seem so real to him that he panicked, took out his gun, and made his partner get out the car. Once he arrived at his house he would forget everything and wonder what happen. It was the only way I could think to make him pay for disrespecting me.

I walked to the police station so I could think about what I needed to say exactly. When I saw my boy dead in the middle of the street, it did something to me. I found it utterly disgusting the way the cops shot my son, put all the black people on the ground, and took away our rights. When I walked past the park, I saw my ex-wife's cart still in the same place. It made her a lot of money, so I thought it would be best for me to put it back behind her restaurant. I placed all her merchandise back into its rightful location, and when I checked her money drawer, it was still full of cash. On a normal day, somebody would have stolen all her merchandise and money, but with the death of eight cops and the violation of citizens' rights, everybody was saddened.

I pushed the cart down the street, over behind Sue's restaurant, and then locked it up. I stood in front of her bistro, and then tried to contact her telepathically one more time, but I didn't get anything. Honestly, the idea of her committing suicide overtook my normal thoughts of her, and I went into her building one more time and search. I searched every part of her restaurant but didn't see any evidence of her. I screamed her name but didn't see anything.

The cop-sirens were maddening. The entire city looked like one huge Christmas tree. Every minute or so I saw a cop car speeding down Main Street, combing the neighborhood, and looking for Bay Reese. He killed eight cops in the hospital, and now every black man in the city was under attack. I eventually made it to the police station, and cop cars were strewn about. One of the cars looked like it was thrown into the building while another one was smashed in the middle of the road. Several cars were turned upside down, and when I stumbled into the main entrance of the building, I saw what looked like a horror show. I saw six additional cops in the front lounge dead on the floor, and two of them had their heads completely ripped off their bodies. I paused for a moment. I'm not going to like that I didn't want them dead for killing my boy. Not one of the cops deemed it wrong to shoot a ten-year-old child in the back, and when the media got wind of the story, they said Thong was a thirty-something-year-old man.

I should have felt something for the dead cops, but I didn't. I saw one of the black cops holding the hand of one of the white cops, and part of me felt like they got what they deserved. Nobody said anything when the cops killed my boy. Everything they said was a boatload of lies. But at the same time, I went into the black cop's mind to see if he knew anything about my wife. And all I saw was his last words, "I love you, Mark." The man that held his hand was his husband, but I didn't care. I just wanted to find my wife.

When I stepped out the side door of the building, I saw a young man with schizophrenia rocking back and forth in the courtyard. His hair was in every possible direction on his head. He wore an organ jumpsuit. He walked around in circles, and he screamed, "It was a monster. He killed all the cops." He laughed loudly, and then he started crying, "They had families. They all had families." He then looked directly at me, and said, "But they got what they deserved. They were all bad. Not a good cop among them." Walking away in the other directions, he started singing Amazing Grace. He then said, "They're in God's hands now."

I continued down the street, and it was crowded with the National Guard deploying into the area. The humvees lined the street, and I counted about thirty trucks. The soldiers stood in front of the military vehicles, and as I walked by, they just gawked like they had something to say. They lined up and down the street, weapons in hand, and it made me nervous. As far as I knew, one man killed all the cops, but the entire town of Freeland was under siege by the authorities. The police acted like everybody in the city of Freeland carried a vendetta against the cops. Their attitudes put citizens in danger.

As I walked down Main Street, I heard one of the National Guard members say, "I wish one of those gorillas come at me. I tell you what!"

He kind of made me mad, but I didn't feel like I needed to confront the man. All I wanted to do was find my Sue, and I didn't care too much what the National Guard thought about the people of Freeland. I wanted to spend the rest of the day writing my novel-creating characters for a new generation of readers. I smiled for a moment, and then thought, I'll have time for that later. When I walked in front of my apartment complex, I saw several kids playing outside on the concrete. They had their little cars and played up and down the sidewalk.

When I looked down at my watch, it was almost twelve in the morning. I was looking to the south of Freeland when I saw tons of dirt fly into the air. I hadn't ever seen anything like it in my entire life. All of the dirt in that area was contaminated by Downing Chemical, and cancer rates were higher in that part of the town. The dirt went all the way up into the sky, and then it caught on fire. The entire night sky looked like an inferno. It lasted for about two minutes, and then it stopped. I ran down the street, behind one of the buildings, and then took flight. When I landed in the area, I saw JJ standing in the middle of the field with his flying robot. He bent down, placed his hands in the dirt, and the grass started growing all over the field. What looked like a vast desert turned into a forest right before my eyes. All of the excitement brought the cops and the national guard into the area.

JJ disappeared in front of my eyes. It was like he vanished without a trace, and I thought about doing the same. I backed up into the newly formed treeline and saw the National Guard march into the area. I wasn't sure what they expected to find because most of the people were off the street. When I looked at the opposite end of the field, I saw Bay. I couldn't tell what he planned on doing because nearly seventy-five soldiers were walking towards him. When he walked toward the soldiers, my ex-wife walked from behind him, and that made me react.

I heard one of the soldiers fire his gun, and then I saw the soldier go down. I knew at that point that my wife had complete control of her telekinesis. I pushed my thought into her mind, and said, "Thong is okay. JJ restored his life," I said telepathically. "You don't have to kill anymore."

"My boy is alive?" She asked telepathically.

"Yes," I said. "Please don't hurt anybody else. Tell Bay his Momma is okay. JJ restored her life too."

Suddenly, JJ dropped down in the middle of the field. He looked in the direction of the National Guard unit as they advanced on his position. When he heard a series of gunfire, he opened up a hole in the earth, and all the soldiers fell into it. I didn't know what to think because the ground opened up, swallowed the soldiers, and all I heard was a lot of screaming. JJ then sent the soldiers directly into the air, and they screamed so loudly that I could hardly stand it. With just the wave of his right hand, he flung them across the city.

"Nick! Quit hiding," JJ said in a playful manner.

I walked over to my wife, and her eyes were nearly swollen shut. Bay had been crying too. We all walked over to JJ, and he looked like the devil with his painted face. Nobody really knew what he looked like underneath all the paint. But when he dressed in his superhero costume, he looked squared away like all the rest of them. He hid his true identity with the face paint, and it was easy to tell.

"JJ, is my son alive?" Sue asked with her hands on her hips.

"Yes," he said, "Your child will have a long life."

"Thank you," she said as she kissed his hand.

When JJ smiled at my wife, he immediately looked up in the air, and it caused me to glance up at the night sky. I'm not sure what I expected to see, but a large, alien vessel flew tardigrade across the night sky.

"That's a Lords of Decay ship," JJ said with a grimace. "It's a single man cruiser, but it looks larger than it really is. If you come in contact with a Lord, don't try to touch him. He'll rot you from the inside and out. The Lords are deadly being."

"Why is it here?" I asked. Something inside of me told me they were searching for something, but I didn't know what it was.

"I'm not sure," JJ said, "But I'm familiar with the design. The Lords are an old race."

I looked towards the town for a moment, and I saw the cop cars creeping towards us. They would reach the edge of the field, turn back around, and race across town like they thought we were on the other side of town. "What are they doing?" Bay asked.

JJ laughed for a moment. "We all have special powers," he said with a smile. "I'm making the cops think you're on the other side of town, and then when they reach the other side of town, I'm making them think you're on this side of town. They'll be having a nagging feeling like they're about to catch you all day."

"You can do that?" The young kid asked.

"I can do a lot more, but that's not important." He paused for a moment. "You killed a lot of cops. Over twenty cops as far as I can tell."

"I became enraged," he said with a grimace. "They shot my Momma. I was so angry that I couldn't control myself."

JJ looked directly at me, and I knew what he was thinking. He wanted Pearl City to give Bay asylum. "Come on, JJ," I said, "Pearl City won't accept outsiders. They won't even accept me into their world."

"Maybe if I ask them they will for me," he said, "If I'm not mistaken, your world is about two light years from Vega Star. If we take him through the portal, then we can get him to Vega Star."

"I don't know that much about that planet, but they're strict. Real strict. This young man will be in a Vega Star prison within a day of entering that world."

"But I don't want to leave my Momma and brother," he said.

"You won't have a life here," JJ said, "The cops know your face. They have you on camera in the police station killing cops." Suddenly, he turned around, and it made me nervous. He looked right through me, and asked, "What was that?"

"Nothing! I'm just standing here," I said.

"Not you, Nick," he said.

"Me?" Sue asked.

"There's a spacecraft right there," he said calmly.

When I turned around, I didn't see anything at all. For a moment, I thought the young man was crazy. "I don't see anything."

"Oh. It's there," he said, "It's the Lantern's ship. It's been there the whole time and I didn't notice it."

"She's the one from Moxia, so that might be our answer," I said, "She can drop the kid off on a planet similar to this one, and he'll actually have a life."

"I'm not leaving Earth," Bay said, "This is my world."

JJ looked at him for a moment, and then asked, "What kind of life will you have in prison? Those cops shot into your car, tried to kill you, and then you fought back. Unfortunately, the rest of the world won't see it like that. If we don't get you off-world, you'll rot in prison."

The young man backed away from JJ and began crying. He then ran into the woods. "That didn't go as planned," I said.

"Nick, take your wife home," JJ said, "Be with your family."

"What are you going to do?" I asked with a grimace.

"Right now there's a threat hovering over us," he said, "That's my main worry."


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Sue and I found Thong sleeping on the couch when I entered my quiet home in Metropolis. We stood over him for a moment, and my ex-wife sobbed a little as she watched her baby sleeping. She hadn't ever stepped into my Metropolis home because I didn't have it when we first married, and due to my father, she did her best to stay out of my way, even though her bistro was only down the street from the apartment complex I owned. She sobbed while looking at Thong's peaceful visage, and then asked, "Can we sleep right here, right here on the floor next to our child?"

"Okay," I said softly. I walked over to the hallway closet, grabbed some blankets, and set them on the floor. I had a special blanket made with our pictures on it back from our college days at National City University. When I pulled it out of the closet, I handed it to Sue, and she looked at it for a long time. I could tell her tears hadn't dried, and the image of Thong's lifeless body was still fresh in her mind. She took in a whiff of the old blanket, and said, "It still carries our scent."

Helicopters flew overhead, the national guard trucks drove around Freeland and into Metropolis, and a lot of commotion took place in the search for Bay Nelson. Sue and I moved the coffee table out of the way, set the blankets on the ground, and made a nice bed. Everything felt like it did when we were in college, except we had a ten-year-old child now. Even though Thong lay on the couch sleeping peacefully, I couldn't help repeatedly seeing the cop stepping on his lifeless body. I always feared that one day the cops would shoot my child, and for Thong to panic and run, the cops must have been acting hostile towards him.

It was almost two o'clock in the morning, and I was wide awake. My brain had a million thoughts racing through it. I wanted to sit back on the heavy quilt, think about cows leaping over the moon, and fall asleep, but I was too angry for that. I was upset over the cop shooting my son for no apparent reason. Sue sat up for a moment and leaned against the couch.

"I'm not going to be a free woman for long," she said with a grimace. Her almond eyes were red like fire, and she looked worried. "The powers you've had your whole life are native to you. In me, they're foreign and I turn erratic and dangerous when provoked. I killed those black boys because they threatened me. Nobody cared about that. But I tore into those cops because one of them shot my boy, I killed six of them in the police station. Everybody cares about that."

I sat up for a moment and held Sue as she cried in my arms. "When that Time comes, we'll handle it at that point. I have a lot of money from my books, and we can mount an insanity defense or something to keep you out of jail."

Sue was a killer, and I don't think I can merely look past that. I still had issues with my relationship with Sue, but I felt I could move past them in time. I knew she killed people, and from what I could tell, she killed those cops because most of them were on a killing spree on February sixteenth, twenty nineteen. At some point, the police would come for her, and I don't know how she will react to them. She may go with them peacefully or she may kill them with her abilities. It really depends on her mood.

Next day…

Sue made some bacon, eggs, and pancakes around ten o'clock on Sunday morning. Thong played a handheld video game while sitting on the couch, and he didn't seem bothered by anything. I watched the news because the media continued to report about the twenty-five cops killed. The Action News Four Helicopter took some video of nearly forty cops running down the street in full riot gear. I wasn't sure what was happening at first until I remembered JJ telling me that he was deceiving the cops into believing Bay was on the opposite side of town. When the cops ran to the other side of the city, they'd think Bay was on the opposite end. They had been running like that all night.

"This is Randy Rush with Action News Four. I'm out here in Freeland, and for some strange reason the cops have abandoned their vehicles and started tracking Bay Nelson on foot. It's either heart or madness or a little of both, but these brave men are destined to capture the cop killer, Bay Nelson."

"Why are they running?" Sue asked with a grimace. She mixed the pancake batter while standing in between the living room and the dining room. "They've been racing back and forth the whole night." She shook her head in disbelief.

"Yeah. That road is like ten miles long," I said, "They've been driving up and down it all night. Now, they're running it."

She walked back into the kitchen, and then said, "They can run until they die for all I care."

I looked at the back of her head as she disappeared into the kitchen, and thought, _I don't want my son thinking that way_. I sat back on the couch, looked over at Thong, and then I immediately felt hope because he was doing fine.

"I died yesterday," Thong said while he played his video game. "The man in the weird clothes brought me back. How did he do that?"

"One day I will tell you about him, but not today," I said with a scowl on my face. Honestly, I didn't think he was ready to hear all the stories about the history of the Deceivers. When he turns the age of twelve, I will tell him then about the progenitor of the Deceivers, but until then, I had to keep mum about the Vulcan.

"Father, can Momma live with us?" He asked as he laid his video game on the coffee table. I felt like he was trying to make me out to be the bad guy because I had no intentions of letting her stay with us. It wasn't safe.

"We discussed this," I said softly. "I love your mother, but we have a lot of issues."

"Like what?" He asked.

"Son, you're making me out to be the bad guy," I said with a grimace. "It's just me and you in this world."

"Why does everybody else get to have a Momma except for me?" He asked bitterly.

After the nice breakfast, I sat on the couch with my notes on the Downing Chemical contamination. Sue slept in the Easy Boy, Thong did his school work, and I looked through a list of Metropolis lawyers who could continue the lawsuit against Downing Chemical. I wanted to have a little faith in the judicial system, but I didn't have any at all. Previously, I started a lawsuit against Downing Chemical, but the media sided with them, made the people of Freeland look like greedy thugs, and the courts tossed the lawsuit.

I watched JJ remove the contamination from Freeland, but at the time I didn't understand the ramifications of it. He told me that he removed every minute trace of the carcinogens from the soil, and even though I saw him do it, I feared it would leave Freeland without its money. At the same time, I realized that JJ using his technology to revive Thong and Doctor Carla Nelson would do more to vindicate the cops and put the blame solely on Bay Nelson. It appeared to me that the cops would get away with shooting my kid, and to be honest, that disturbed me.

Monday, February 18, 2019

I dropped Thong off at school, Sue off at work, and then I headed over to the city council meeting in the courthouse. Thong upset me quite a bit because he continued to beg me to let Sue live with us, and due to what I learned about her past, I couldn't do it. She was too volatile when it came to her emotions, and I feared she might stab me in my sleep.

When I arrived at the courthouse, Orion shot me with a laser to get my attention. She hovered in the corner of the hallway and looked somewhat like another camera in the building. People only saw JJ's best friend and mentor when she wanted to be seen; otherwise, I would have never known she was there. Every time I discussed anything with the young teen, he had Orion with him, and she was involved in the action as much as everybody else in the room.

I knew why she showed up at the meeting, and it had everything to do with the contamination in Freeland. When JJ realized the entire area was infected with harmful radiation, he became incensed. For years the citizens of Freeland tried to do something about the contamination, but the court cases always failed for some small reason. Last year, DA Earl Henderson tried to file a libel suit against Downing Chemical, and then he was found dead in seedy hotel room in Metropolis of a drug overdose.

The meeting commenced at ten o'clock in the morning, and Orion hovered in the corner of the room. She blended in with the wall and I couldn't really see her, but she was able to communicate with me telepathically.

"Nick, why does the Mayor and Willie Vallon have wires underneath their clothing?" She asked telepathically. I kind of looked up in the far corner of the room, but I couldn't see Orion. She was elusive. I looked over at the Mayor, and my eyes traced every in of her upper torso. I was searching for anything sticking out of her shirt or possibly making an impression in her shirt that would indicate a wire.

"Are you sure?" I asked telepathically. "I don't see anything."

"Yes," she said, "It's linked to the small van across the street. It looks like government operatives are listening in on this meeting."

The twelve council members sat around a long table, and the thirteenth member was the Mayor, Lisa Talley. She was a tall, pecan colored woman with straight hair. I sat next to her, and she had on some nice perfume; it had a fruitful smell.

The other council members crowded into the room, and they were Nathan Roach, Victor Pine, Mable Ann Baker, Karen Talley, Jack Bailey, Demetrius Rand, Shane Winston, Willie Vallon, Blister Jenkins, Kara Washington, Andy Crawly, and myself.

"Let's get this meeting started," the Mayor said as she shuffled her papers. "We've lost a total of twenty-five cops over the weekend as most of you already know. This has put a tremendous strain on our police force, and at this time, the gangs have us outnumbered and outgunned."

I immediately interrupted the Mayor, and said, "We need to focus in on applicants who grew up in Freeland. The current group of cops doesn't have our interest in mind. It's an us versus them mentality, and that attitude puts a rift between the cops and the citizens they're supposed to protect."

"I understand that. But right now, we're missing twenty-five cops off our police force," she said, "We don't have enough manpower to protect the city."

I listened to the Mayor for the next thirty minutes, and then I said, "We might be able to get some cops on loan from Metropolis. We can put a request into the state, and they can possibly supply us with backup if we need it."

"Okay," the Mayor said, "We'll definitely use the state's resources on this matter. In addition, we have to publicly state that we condemn Bay Nelson's actions on this matter. Under no circumstance can we take a public stance that the cops were in the wrong."

"The Cops did shoot my boy," I said, "If a cop can't tell the difference between a ten-year-old kid and an adult, then I don't think we need them on the force."

Demetrius Rand was a fair skin black man with brownish black hair. He nodded in agreement with me, and then said, "Exactly. I was out there when the cops shot Thong."

"But you told me it was actually a graze, Nick," the Mayor said.

"That's not the point," I said, "He shouldn't have fired his weapon in the first place."

"I understand your dismay, Mister Ryan, but we have to have some decorum in public," she said, "Better training, sensitivity training, and bringing more black cops on the force is a good start, but without the money from Downing Chemical, we won't be able to afford everything we need."

"We're ready to bring another lawsuit against Downing Chemical," I said with a grimace, "But I don't think it will go far."

"Why's that?" She asked.

"First of all, why are you wearing a wire, Mayor?" He asked bluntly.

Her eyes grew large, and then she said, "What makes you ask that?"

"I know the city of Freeland has made several failed attempts at bringing a lawsuit against Downing Chemical. I'm arguing that we have members on the city council bought and paid for by Downing Chemical. This is the reason we keep losing in court."

"You're just paranoid," she said with a grimace. Some of the board members laughed uncomfortably.

"I'm going to ask you one more time to remove your recorders Mayor and Mister Vallon," I said, "If you don't, you'll wish you had."

"Don't bring me into your madness, Mister Ryan," Mister Vallon said.

I sat at the table with my hands clasped together, and Orion said to me telepathically, "This is going to get ugly. I'm going to heat up their wires."

At first, I wanted to stop Orion from doing what she does, but I wanted to find out why all the court cases failed to go anywhere. I didn't want to be like the Deceivers because they were cruel and often killed people to achieve their goals. "Do it," I said telepathically.

"Oh god!" The Mayor exclaimed. She ripped off her blouse and the wire because it burned her skin. Mister Vallon did the same thing. He tore off his suit and shirt and then threw them on the table with the wire in it, and then it caught fire.

"I advise both of you to resign immediately," I said with a grimace. "You've betrayed your city and your people."

The Mayor stood at the head of the table in her white bra, tapped her fingers on the desk, and then asked, "Shouldn't the people of Freeland decide this?"

"I'm trying to let you leave with an ounce of dignity," I said. "You've allowed Downing Chemical to compromise your integrity."

"You're acting like it isn't about money," Mister Vallon said, "When it's truly our one true god. Everybody on this board except for you and two other people received kickbacks to allow Downing Chemical to dump radioactive waste in our backyards."

"Who didn't receive kickbacks?" I asked with a grimace. When the other two board members raised their hands, he wrote their names on his notepad: Nathan Roach and Karen Talley. "So, everybody who received kickbacks is now millionaires, right?" I asked.

"No," Mister Vallon said with a grimace. "It was only a five hundred thousand dollar checked split between nine board members. The Mayor made her own deal."

"So, how much money did you receive, Mayor?" I asked.

"A little over two hundred thousand," she said.

"So, you guys sold out your city for seven hundred thousand dollars?" I asked. "What am I missing?"

"You come from money," Jack Bailey said, "We all know you're a very wealthy man."

"To be a government official, you need a modicum of integrity," I said. "I can't even bring a lawsuit against Downing Chemical on behalf of the city because nine of the twelve members took bribes." I shook my head in disbelief. "Even if I knew how to get forty million dollars, I could never trust a bunch of crooks with it."

"You speak so boldly because you don't know Downing Chemical," the Mayor said with a grimace. "It's all fun and games until a fisherman retrieves your body from the Metropolis Reservoir."

"So, DA Henderson didn't die from a drug overdose, did he?" I asked calmly. "You sacrificed a good man for your shenanigans."

"He wouldn't play ball," Demetrius Rand said. "Listen, you're the newest member of the city council. Maybe you should step down."

Suddenly, Orion appeared in the center of the room. She hovered directly above the table, and then a holographic image of the Vulcan appeared. He was in his full uniform: mask, cape, and a large, silver V in the middle of his chest. "I'm going to ask everybody who took money from Downing Chemical to step down immediately," the Vulcan said, "You've compromised your position."

"Who are you?" Mister Vallon asked.

The older black man grabbed his throat and began choking. He then flew up into the ceiling, slammed his head, and then hit the floor like a bag of rocks. "I'm sorry that you had to see a display of violence in this situation. But when Downing Chemical pays me my money, I can't in good conscious give forty million to you, a bunch of crooks."

The Mayor laughed. "You're not getting in money from Downing Chemical."

"Not only will they pay me, but they'll be happy about it," The Vulcan said. "All the radioactive waste in Freeland is gone. There isn't a trace of the stuff left. Normally, a clean-up of that size would cost well over seven hundred million dollars. It's about a four years process. I cleaned it up in two minutes. When calculating the time and money for this job, we're talking about in the billions of dollars. I'm only charging them six hundred million dollars."

"They'll never pay," The Mayor said as she tried to swat a fly. I looked at her for a moment, and she started trying to adjust her bra. At first, I didn't know what was happening. She stood up on her chair, ripped off her pants, and appeared to be swatting at bugs.

"What are you doing?" I asked. She leaped off the chair, tumbled backward, and continued to beat the imaginary bugs away. I didn't know what to do because she was acting like a maniac.

"They're everywhere," She screamed. Sweat began dripping down her face because all the swatting at the air and bouncing around looked like an aerobic exercise gone wild. "Don't you see them?"

"See what?" I asked.

"The spiders! They're all over me," she said as she started screaming and crying.

"When you put in your resignation, the bugs will go away," The Vulcan said as his holographic image stood on the table. "I take no pleasure in doing this, people, but you're standing in the way of progress."

"I'll resign," she screamed, "Just make them go away."


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter Fifteen

I considered JJ ineluctable once he made up his mind, and when it came to the city council, he spent his precious time tormenting each and every one of them. All the corrupt council members except for Blister Jenkins resigned by Friday, but when it came to the Mayor, the Vulcan wanted her to stay in her position until after Downing Chemical paid him his money. Once he donated forty million dollars to Freeland, he wanted the Mayor to announce her resignation, and then the Deputy Mayor would become Mayor.

Reverend Blister Jenkins preached at the First Baptist Church in the downtown area, and he refused to step down from the city council. The Vulcan asked him on Wednesday why he hadn't put in his resignation, and according to the Vulcan, he said, "I'm putting it in Jesus' hands."

I actually felt sorry for Reverend Blister Jenkins because he truly thought Jesus was going to protect him from the Vulcan. He simply asked him to step down for the good of the city, and the Reverend refused to obey. The Vulcan's real name was Ptah, and he was so cruel in his day that his own children tried to make weapons to keep him from interfering with their societies. He let the Deceivers grow into a strong people. I think the Vulcan tried his best not to be the capricious god who let a universe die just to try to kill his father, but at the same time, he was the capricious god who let a universe die just to try to kill his father.

"If Blister Jenkins doesn't step down by Friday, then he messes with my timeline," JJ said telepathically. "I encourage you to persuade him to step down. If he doesn't then I'll have to get involved. I expect the new city councilmen in place by the sixth of March. This timeline is very important because I will be in negotiations with Downing Chemical for the six hundred million dollars."

"You're already extremely wealthy," I said telepathically, "You could pay Freeland from your personal bank account, and you wouldn't notice."

"Do you really think this is solely about the money?" He asked telepathically. "The fact I have to explain this to you sickens me, Nick. They must be punished for their crimes against humanity. Now, I want you to persuade Blister Jenkins to step down."

The First Baptist Church…

I walked into the church on Thursday afternoon after I ate a small lunch at Sue's Bistro. Blister Jenkins was in his office, and he was looking at some porn on the church's computer. I didn't find that too shocking because he was a man who often engaged in coitus with his female church members. I sat down in his office, and he immediately said, "Jesus won't let me step down."

I looked at him for a moment. He had some almonds on his desk and began eating them in front of me. He was a chubby man, a man who led a hedonistic lifestyle, but supposedly a man of God too. I placed my hands on his desk, and said, "I don't think you understand who the Vulcan is."

"Listen, he doesn't guide my hands," he said, "I'm staying on the city council, Nick." He had some lotion on the side of his computer, a box of tissues, and he still had the porn up on his screen.

"So, watching porn doesn't go against your Christians beliefs?" I asked.

"Only if it's gay porn," he said laughingly.

As soon as I stepped out of the church, the Vulcan contacted me telepathically, and said, "You're a horrible Deceiver. I just looked up Beta Male in the dictionary, and it describes you perfectly. Why didn't you go into his mind like a good Deceiver would, and persuade him to resign?"

"Because I don't work like that," I said telepathically.

"Nick, you better get your shit together,' the Vulcan said.

When it came to being a Deceiver, I considered myself a laggard because I didn't finish my training. My father cut me off after I married Sue, and then after that, I rarely used my abilities. Unlike the Vulcan, Deceivers had to practice nonstop to master their skills. When I got home around two in the afternoon, Sue was in the kitchen cooking dinner for Thong and me.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"I let my staff run the place," she said calmly. "I want my family back, Nick."

"Well, we need time to discuss this," I said with a grimace.

"How much time?" She asked. "I'll like to have some more children before it's too late."

The next day…

The next morning Sue cooked some pancakes, and the television was on in the background. It was on Action News Four, a news station out of Metropolis.I liked Sue's fluffy pancakes. She poured Thong a glass of milk. She worked diligently for her family, and I knew immediately that she was doing it all so Thong would persuade me to let her back in our lives. I'm not sure why she worked so hard in getting back with me, but she did.

News Action Four Segment:

I'm Randy Bush, and I want to do a quick shoutout to all the family members of the fallen officers. You guys are in our thoughts and prayers. This morning we're re-airing a segment that we brought you last night about the Baptist Preacher from Freeland who claims his Jesus statue raped him. He said he tried to tell Jesus that he wasn't gay, but Jesus raped him anyway.

End of Segment

When I saw the news segment about the Jesus statue raping Blister Jenkins, I wasn't that surprised because I knew JJ would do something above and beyond to get the man to step down from the city council. I feared when the man took a stance against the Vulcan that things wouldn't turn out well. But at the same time, Blister probably thought he could continue to be defiant, and the Vulcan would give up. What the old preacher didn't understand was the Vulcan would still be alive in a million years, and had all the time he needed to make his life miserable.

"I know that preacher," Sue said as she looked over at the television. "He's a dirty old man. Nasty."

"What makes you say that?" I asked.

"He's always feeling up a different girl in my restaurant," she said, "He comes into my bistro about once a week."

"I don't doubt it," I said with a smile. "Thong, why are you so quiet?" I asked.

He looked up at me with his almond-shaped eyes, and said, "You know what I want. I don't think I need to repeat myself."

At that point, I didn't say anything else to him except, "Let's go."


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter Sixteen

After I took Thong to school on Friday morning, I was on my way back home when I sensed something wasn't right. At first, I thought JJ was contacting me telepathically, but it was my own senses picking up on some men who wanted to do me harm. I had this feeling in my heart that somebody was following me, and when I looked in my rearview mirror, I saw a black car tailing me closely. It was just like in the movies when the bad guys drove around in a good looking Mercedes, tinted windows, and all the amenities. At first, I thought about heading to Freeland, but I changed my mind. Not only was the police understrength, but I had to assume they were part of the contingency to deal with people who threatened Downing Chemical with a lawsuit. A thousand thoughts raced through my head, but I couldn't decide on anything.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" JJ asked telepathically. "When you think somebody's following you, you go into their frickin heads, analyze them, and react to the results. I'm not sure why you aren't treating these thugs with soft hands, but you need to protect your town. This is what being a Deceiver is all about, Nick."

"Are you reading my mind all the time?" I asked telepathically. I was almost sure JJ was in my head nonstop at this point. On some levels, I felt insecure because he appeared to be watching my every move as if he was preparing me for something bigger in life.

"No, fool," he said, "I have Orion watching you because you were threatened in the board meeting, or have you forgotten already?" He paused for a moment, and I didn't think I needed to answer his question. "I just scanned the miscreants' minds, and they have every intention of putting a bullet in you," he said telepathically. "What are you going to do?"

When I pulled up to the house, hopped out of my car, Sue walked out onto the porch. A sea of sticks, rocks, and whatever other free objects in the area twirled around her body like her own personal funnel cloud. And as soon as the black car rolled up in my driveway, three men came out with their pistols pointed at me. Thousands of sticks and stones flew into the air from the funnel cloud that encompassed Sue and tore through the thugs' bodies. Their blood flew in every direction, and it nearly caused me to throw up. I hadn't seen a macabre scene like that since the night Bay brought chaos to the city of Freeland. Suddenly, their car folded up into one ball of twisted metal, and their flesh turned into complete mush, and then they disappeared in front of my eyes.

"Did you do that, Sue?" I asked.

"Only the killing part," she said, "But the rest of it was the Vulcan."

"Yeah. I disposed of them," JJ said telepathically. "It's a shame that I had to get your wife to do what you should be doing. Why is it that I can trust her to put a bullet in a man threatening your life, but I can't get you to put a bullet in a man threatening your life? Oh yeah! It's because your ass is a beta male."

"You're not even giving me a chance," I said telepathically. "You're as judgmental as my father."

"Nick, somebody ordered the men to attack you," he said telepathically. "I'm going to need you to find out who ordered the hit. Since one of your councilmen made the threat, I think that's the best place to start."

"What do I do when I find the people who ordered the hit?" I asked telepathically. I kissed Sue when I walked onto the porch, and then waited for JJ to response.

"At this point, you're going to have to kill them," he said telepathically, "You really can't let these men live. If anything, you have to think about what they're willing to do. They've polluted Freeland with chemicals that have hurt the people. It was inhumane. It was deliberate. Some of the city officials sided with Downing Chemical as the people they represented died of cancer. At this point, it would be immoral to let such vile creatures live. "

When we went back into the house, Sue looked over at me with her hands on her hips. She shook her head for a moment, and then said, "The Vulcan doesn't think much of you."

"It's true," I said, "He's upset with me because I don't just kill people. I'll like to think the law will take care of the people who break it. If I use my abilities for revenge, then I'm no better than the elites who contaminated Freeland in the first place."

"You're a good man," she said with a smile. "But to think the law would punish wealthy wrongdoers like Downing Chemical is a tad naive. The law doesn't punish all men. It's our duty to step in where the law fails."

"Did the Vulcan tell you to say that?" I asked.

"No," she said, "I just know Downing Chemical will pay for contaminating Freeland with money or with their lives or both. It's the only way."

Personally, I thought the Vulcan was putting me through some kind of trial because my heart felt heavy. I had been avoiding sex with Sue due to the fact I wanted to be sure I was with her for the right reasons. Thong wanted a mother and I wanted a wife, but at the same time, she killed people on camera. It was no secret to the city council that she was one of the killers. I don't know why the cops hadn't arrested her, but I knew they would at some point. After the cop shot Thong in the back, she went to the police station and killed about six cops with her powers before she absconded to the fringes of the city.

Often, I wrestled with my feelings when it came to my ex-wife. I never wanted to divorce her, but my father forced her to leave me. But due to the Lazareth Pit and my blood, she walked the path of a Deceiver, a lost soul without a world, without a library of knowledge, and without guidance from our ancestors. That was the reason I looked to the Vulcan for counsel because he was the ancient god, Ptah, the progenitor of the Deceivers. Even though my race fought to be free of his reign, I still respected his ancient wisdom because I didn't have access to the historical data. He returned to his world, and his daughters imbued him with the knowledge of his past. When JJ impregnated Sue with a soul, he had Orion with him, and she hovered over his head. According to the legend, he built Orion nearly four million years ago. The Green Witch sent Orion back to him from the future as his sage. Nearly five hundred thousand years ago, Ptah took his own life to be with his wife in death. Since gods don't actually die, he turned into pure energy, and his daughters kept their parents' sparks in two separate boxes. A wise woman name Doctor Rachel Ballard used her wisdom to imbue JJ and Peppermint with the god-sparks so they would bring a new light to the universe. So, when JJ said that I had to eradicate the men who were willing to harm the people of Freeland for profit, I didn't take it lightly. I trained with the League of Assassins, but I never wanted to kill anybody. Every Deceiver trained in the art of killing, and to be honest, most of them were killers. I was torn.

I pulled off my clothes in the living room, and when I walked into the bathroom, Sue was about to turn off the water. She stood in front of me in the nude, and for some reason, my mind wandered back to my college days. We often made love in the shower before class, and it was some of the best days of my life. Quickly, I climbed into the shower, and Sue came up to my mid-section. I kissed her passionately, and then we made love for nearly thirty minutes. What made it so special was I expected it to be the last time we had sex because she was going to prison at some point. With the police department losing so many officers, it took time for them to arrest Sue, but it was going to happen. And since the manhunt for Bay Nelson was now nationwide, I suspected the cops were busy dealing with that.

"I felt pain in you," Sue said as she placed her hands on my chest. "The cops will arrest me soon, but it's okay. This frumpy Asian girl is the bad girl. But I knew when I married you, I had one of the good guys, Nick."

"JJ promised he could find a new world for Bay where he could live in peace," I said, "Maybe he can find a world for us where we can live in peace."

She smiled as the water bounced off her head, and then said, "Leave Earth? I'm not sure if I'm willing to do that. This is where my home is."


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter Seventeen

I sat on the front steps of my home when I heard the helicopters circling overhead. The main thing on my mind was Sue leaving Earth with the Moxian Lantern, a powerful warrior from the planet Moxia in the Dark Corridor who came to Earth for a new recruit in the Lantern Corp. The wind blew wildly, and dust flew up into my eyes from the powerful blades of the choppers. The blades made a loud thumping noise that nearly drove me crazy, and even though they hovered overhead, I didn't immediately realize why. I looked up at the locust shaped birds and wanted to abscond from the scene, but I was frozen in place as I saw bodies descending from the flying, mechanical insects. I immediately realized they tracked Sue to my house, and it was obvious things were about to get serious because she killed several police officers with her superpowers. The trees swayed. Whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop was the sound of the blades whipping through the wind. The dirt and debris flew high into the air because of the power of the blades. Standing to my feet, I heard a series of prongs cutting through the air. I was hit in the left shoulder, and the pain from the head of the barb raced through my entire body, and as soon as I tried to stand, the electrical current immobilized me for a short while, and then I felt something snatch the prongs out of my skin. I screamed.

"Shut up!" JJ said telepathically, "You knew they were coming. Let them take Sue without a fight. Just be still until it all unfolds."

I didn't want to listen to him, but for a moment I couldn't move because he had me glued to the ground with his telekinesis. When I looked up, Orion flew by and watched the scene closely. I'm not going to lie, but I feared the flying robot more than I did JJ because Orion was his first wife, an entity over five million years old who walked with the gods. When the Vulcan had all his powers, he married her when he was in his teens. I read about Orion when I was a child and didn't think I would ever meet her because she was in the Dark Corridor monitoring other worlds. But when it came to the ancient stories of the Deceivers, Orion was always included in the stories of a being who overcame tragedy and advanced the lives of several worlds throughout time.

The soldiers moved so quickly that my wife didn't have time to react. Sue darted out the front door, and as soon as she picked up a pile of twigs with her mind, an electrical net flew through the air, engulfed her body, and shocked her. Normally, she'd turn sticks, grass, and even the dirt into a weapon that would go through an intended target like a sharp knife through paper. The twigs that circled Sue fell to the ground, and when she tried to scream, one of the men shouted, "Stand down!" The electrical sparks from the net flew up high into the sky, and then my wife fell face-first onto the ground. I lay beside her in a lot of pain from the shock I had received earlier.

The boys in black carted Sue off to the local jail, and just like JJ asked, I didn't dare intervene. I lay on the ground quietly, in the dirt, and held on to my sore, left shoulder. Orion flew by my head, and then said, "They'll interrogate her and then place her in a jail cell."

I didn't have any idea where the soldiers took Sue, but I assumed they were from the local police department. When the choppers took off with my wife, Orion followed behind them, so I assumed she'd give me an update at some point. I called Sue my wife, but we divorced several years ago. I still considered her my wife on some levels, and I don't know why I felt that way. Quickly, I walked into the house and JJ started speaking to me telepathically.

"They will be taking Sue to the local jailhouse in Freeland. They have some kind of telepathic blocking helmet on her head that's keeping me from penetrating her mind," he said telepathically, "It would take me some time to figure a way into her brain, but we don't have that much time to figure out Mister Ramon's technology."

"What are you planning?" I asked telepathically.

"Well, I want the helmet on her head because the tech would work well in my new Red Raider suit," he said telepathically.

"You need a suit?" I asked telepathically.

"No. The suit is for Vera, my dearest of friends," he said telepathically. "It's almost ready, but I have to make sure nothing can affect her mind when she's wearing it."

"Well, what about Sue?" I asked with great concern.

"Sue and Bay can't stay on this world," he said telepathically. "I could fake her death, but she's volatile with her powers. Untrained. The soul that I put in her body wasn't her original. I used what was available, and now we need to find some way to tame it."

"I can train her," I said telepathically.

"No. You're feckless when it comes to Sue because your heart is in the way," he said telepathically, "You know it too. I'll devise a solution that will work for all parties involved."


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter Eighteen

Two days passed. I could barely feel where the electrical prong entered into my left shoulder, but at the same time, I could only focus on Sue. She occupied my every thought after the police took her away, and I could feel her pain while she sat in a jail cell without me. I made some bacon, eggs, and poured some milk for Thong, and all I ate was a piece of overly toasted toast with a small cup of coffee. The black coffee allowed me to flush it all down. It was a Tuesday morning, and the media hadn't said anything about the arrest of Sue all weekend. When I watched the news on Monday morning, Action News Four hadn't mentioned her name, but did a complete story on Reverend Blister Jenkins, and even placed a camera in his church to see if the Jesus statue had moved or showed any signs it could rape anyone. On some levels, I felt sorry for him, but he was a corrupt man and received thousands of dollars in kickbacks from Downing Chemical through the years. I only knew because of the information bandied about on the city council. Nothing stayed in the dark long.

I hadn't heard anything from JJ, and even when I tried to contact him telepathically, it was like he wasn't there. There wasn't any sign of Orion or anybody who I thought could help me with Sue's case. Unfortunately, I didn't think anybody-including my father-could help me with her predicament because she killed cops, and that was undeniable. She had my Deceiver blood flowing through her veins and the soul of another creature from anywhere in the verse, and even the Vulcan didn't know where he got the new soul.

But as Thong sat across from me eating his bacon and eggs, scooting the steel fork against the ceramic plate, and making a clink sound every time he scooped up some eggs, I realized why Sue did what she did to those cops because of what they had done to our son. And to be honest, I wanted to do the same because they shot my boy for no reason at all, and then made him out to be a grown man in the media. Part of me cheered for Bay as he wrecked the city before leaving town, and to be honest, I'm going to be sad when Superman or the Vulcan catches up to him, and stops his reign of terror. I hate to think that way, but I can't help myself. I don't know why I'm so angry even though JJ restored my child's life, but at the same time, I hate that the cops who don't value life. Yesterday they shot my boy and today they'll shoot somebody else's boy, and call it good.

Suddenly, I felt fear, a feeling of insecurity about everything as my mind entered the thoughts of Reverend Jenkins. The entry into his head happened by accident because I didn't initiate it. This meant he must be in the area, and I needed to prepare for his evil plans. I heard a car's tires squeal from about a block away, and then I looked over at Thong for a moment. He was busy eating the last of his eggs, scooped them up into his mouth, and completely ignored my gaze. "Go to your room!" My voice was louder than usual because I could see the Reverend's intentions play repeatedly in my head.

"Why?" He asked.

"Just go and lay flat on the floor," I said with a grimace, "Move! Now!" He ran into his room immediately, and I could hear him hit the floor. At the same time, I jumped up from the dining table, ran over to the front window, but couldn't see his car. Opening the front door, I saw several men in military style fatigues standing behind trees, and looking in my direction.

It was a few minutes after dawn, but I could see everything clearly. When I stepped out of the house, I could feel Reverend Jenkin's eyes on me, and one thought was on his mind: The Libertine Council. I had heard of them a few times, but I didn't know anything about the organization.

"What do you want, Reverend?" I asked.

He stepped out from behind the large oak tree from across the street. His black brimmed hat almost concealed his face, but the long, brown cigar gave away his identity. After he took one long drag, he let out a puff of smoke, and from where I stood, it was a sweet aroma, but at the same time, I felt it was challenging me.

"You aided the Vulcan in stealing millions from Downing Chemical," he said with the cigar hanging halfway out his mouth. "We had a good deal with them until the Vulcan stepped in and demanded they pay for contaminating the area." He had his left hand in his pocket, and I wasn't sure if he had a pistol in it or not. "You think they will allow some superfreak to steal their money without retribution? He took thousands from my church!"

I listened to him for a moment, and then said, "That's between Downing Chemical and the Vulcan."

He laughed for a moment, and then said, "The Libertines own a controlling stake in the company. You don't want to mess with them because they have their paws in most institutions around the world." His black trenchcoat nearly touched the ground and he had his hat tilted to the left side, but I knew he still had fear in his heart of the Jesus statue. JJ did a mind manipulation on the man and made him think the statue raped him. It nearly put him in a mental institution when it happened. Often, men who had strong religious beliefs were the easiest to manipulate according to my training as a Deceiver.

I shrugged my shoulders as if to say I didn't care, and that was when Reverend Jenkins pulled out his pistol, but it wasn't an ordinary pistol. It had a red glow around the trigger portion and the end of the barrel had a similar red glow to it. "What are you doing?" I asked calmly. With the power of my mind, I began making an attempt to control his thoughts, but I didn't have near the control of JJ. A Deceiver usually was about a level three or four telepath at the most. It was an old technique I learned when I was a child to make an enemy see what I wanted them to see. Carefully, I placed the image of Jesus in the Reverend's mind walking out of the house with his hands in the air. As soon as he focused on the mirage of Jesus, he began firing his weapon and it appeared to be a hypo-laser with the ability to shoot a solid hole through the house. But as the aberration of Jesus moved closer to the Reverend, he began to scream like a child afraid of a bug.

Suddenly, the other soldiers opened fire on the house, and then I concentrated with all my might, and picked up all the small twigs and rocks in the yard; they began to form into a funnel, and then I shot them at the men. The small rocks cut through their bodies causing them to turn to slush. Every one of the soldiers died, but when it came to the Reverend, he had already taken off running down the street when the aberration of Jesus got to close to him.

I didn't realize I was short of breath until the Reverend Jenkins was out of my sight. And when I looked down at my hands, they shook nervously. The smell of the burning concrete from the laser blast caused me to cough a few times, but I felt okay. I could sense Thong's uneasiness and my concern about the pile of flesh in the front yard. It amazed me that Sue could kill so easily with barely any training, but when it came to me, I shook wildly at the thought of it. Looking out into the yard, the mutilated flesh of the soldiers set and the flies had already gravitated toward the piles. It was nothing more than mountains of flesh slowly rotting and attracting every insect in the area.

With the power of my mind, I was able to ignite the piles of flesh on fire, and burn them to nothingness. But at the same time, the aroma from the burning flesh mimicked the smell of steaks, and it definitely made me want more than some toast for breakfast. It reminded me of when Sue and I used to travel to National City Lake, barbeque steaks, and listen to some old Shoegaze music. In some ways, I felt cannibalism might not be so bad depending on the situation. It might've been just the shock of having to kill people, but I think killing takes a healthy appetite and shouldn't be done solely on black coffee and burnt toast.


	19. Chapter 19

Chapter Nineteen

I sat in front of Sue's Bistro, opened it, and let the workers scurry inside so they could start preparing meals for the public. Days passed and after a while, the workers didn't ask about Sue's whereabouts as long as they had a job. Nobody needed to know that some government entity took her away. The Bistro functioned as usual with plenty of customers and the One Hundred lurked around the area selling drugs and causing mischief. The exchange between gang members and customers happened so nonchalantly that it was easily missed.

One of the gang members drank a Graveyard Shake from Bang Bang Burgers, poured out the contents on the concrete, stuck something inside of it, and then set it next to the light pole across the street from me. It was probably his stash of drugs, but as long as he wasn't in possession of it, the cops wouldn't mess with him. At the same time, there weren't many cops on the streets of Freeland since a lot of them ended up injured or killed by Bay.

I didn't know what to do about the threat of the Libertine Counsel, and to be honest, I didn't know anything about them. At the same time, I knew I couldn't worry myself with a group of elite thugs when the cops hauled my wife away to some remote compound. But when it came to the Libertines, I knew they had the One Hundred on their payroll because I had been listening to their thoughts. With all my abilities, I couldn't extrapolate one image of what a Libertine member looked like because they all wore black hoods and masks when meeting with the gang members. It pained me that I didn't have the ability to read thousands of random thoughts at once like some telepaths, but after only reading ten to fifteen minds, it drained me to no end.

Several of the gang members thought about all the jewels and cars they planned on buying by working for the Libertines, but when Downing Chemical paid Vulcan for his services, it pretty much bankrupted the company. Not only did it set Downing Chemical back, but it hurt the One Hundred's finances. I honestly didn't know how far the Libertine's reach went, but I assumed several higher-ups in Downing Chemical were part of the Libertine Council. In addition, I didn't know if the organization stretched beyond Metropolis and Freeland, but I felt I had to find out.

Cadmus, an organization that worked to defeat metahumans around the world, didn't respond to my inquiry concerning Sue, and then when I asked Vulcan about it, he confirmed that she wasn't with Cadmus at all. I took his word for it without question because he didn't seem to have any reason to lie; besides, he was the one who told me not to fight against the soldiers who took her. For several months, I called the local jailhouse, but they didn't know anything about the arrest of my wife, and since I was still on the City Council, they allowed me to check the facility myself. Not only did I physically check to see if my wife was located in Freeland's gaolhouses but I also checked Metropolis' holding cells too-and nothing. That was when JJ contacted me, and said, "About three days after the military force apprehended her, I lost telepathic contact. The blocking technology used in this case is on the same wavelength found in the Red Raider suit made by Lexcorp."

"Were you able to circumvent the technology?" I asked telepathically.

"No. I haven't figured it out because I've only dissected the suit, but not the helmet with the blocking tech," he said telepathically, "But I'm close to finishing Vera's suit based on the Red Raider technology and the same telepathic blocking gadget is in the helmet of the suit. I will keep Orion and Veo searching for Sue's location. I haven't abandoned you on the search for your wife."

December 10, 2019

Thong sat at the dinner table while I paced around the living room talking to JJ telepathically, and then on the television set, Vulcan walked onto the floor of the United States Senate with Supergirl. It was obvious that I didn't realize he was about to stand in front of some of the most powerful people in the world.

"I'm going to have to cut the conversation short," Vulcan said telepathically, "These old men are riding me over the check Downing Chemical wrote me. Apparently, there's a powerful organization fueling the vitriol over the money I received. This is like the third meeting with them and they continue to threaten me with prison."

"I'll keep scanning the airwaves for any sign of her telepathic signature. It's been over six months since I've seen my wife," I said, "If she's out there, we'll find her. We have to find her."

The government accused Vulcan of extorting money from Downing Chemical, and when they threatened him with prison, he said in a strong voice, "The day of free labor has come to an end. I cleaned up the mess Downing Chemical made because it was killing the citizens of Freeland. You might not hold Downing Chemical accountable, but I do. How many times to I have to stand before this body of men? I don't work for free."

When I heard him stand strong against the United States Senate, I understood his plight and thought he was right: If Downing Poisoned the Slums, then they should pay for the cleanup. But before Vulcan exited the podium, my telepathy picked up on Sue's mental signature, and it was in disarray. At the same time, the Vulcan placed his hands on his forehead, and then he asked me a question telepathically, "Can you sense that?"

"Yes. I'm trying to extrapolate a location now," I said.

There was a struggle going on in her mind and I could feel her pain; it felt like a garbled mess outside my control. I knew when the Lazareth Pit brought Sue back to life with my blood that it would connect us on a mental level. With the power of my thoughts, I could see what she saw, and from what I could tell, she was in some kind of underground building. Sue and I divorced years ago, but I still felt deeply connected to her and loved her nonetheless. She was my frumpy Asian girl, the reason why I wrote all the love novels that made me millions. No matter how I looked at things, without her I wouldn't be the man I am today.

I sat down in the middle of the living room, turned the television off, and focused in on my Sue, and when I did, I saw a technician put a device on her head and then everything went black. The technician wore a solid black suit with silver eyes. But when the technician placed the device on Sue's face, It felt like it completely cut me off at the source, but when I tried to enter into the mind of the technician, something else blocked me.

"Deceiver, you may be naturally strong, but you're not able to overcome my tech," the technician said, "Our tech is based on old technology. The only way you'll get your wife back is to kill Vulcan."

"Kill Vulcan? He's a god with powers out of this world," I said as I tried to penetrate the technician's mind. "Why did you take my Sue?" I asked. "She didn't do anything to you."

"She did plenty," the technician said, "She killed cops and now she's an enemy of the state. You didn't think the Libertine Counsel would let a powerful metahuman roam the countryside with this kind of power?"

Even though the technician made some good points, I didn't expect that as being the true reason. Deep in my heart, I felt there was another reason the Libertines targeted my wife, but I couldn't put my finger on it. I thought for a moment and then said, "Vulcan is a god with godlike powers. He can't simply be killed by ordinary weapons."

"The Deceivers killed him two hundred thousand years ago," the Technician said, "You can do it again with the help of the Libertine Counsel."

I listened closely to what the technician said to me, but it wasn't necessarily true. The voice in my head had an incorrect idea of what happened with my ancestors. Telepathically, I said, "That's not the case according to Deceiver's law. Ptah left the world on his own accord only to return one day to bring truth to the verse." After that, the voice left my mind, but I did give the idea of killing Vulcan some thought.


	20. Chapter 20

Chapter 20

Thong stayed with his mother's brother for the time being while I went to the Metropolis Library; it was where the technician told me to go to see my wife early in the morning. The snow moved in slowly and heavily, and in about two days, at least two feet of the white stuff had fallen on the city. It was cold, I thought, right below freezing. I really didn't like the cold weather but I endured it nonetheless. Underneath my suit, I wore my black, assassins uniform, the one I got from the League of Assassins. Hoping to see my wife, I drove cautiously, wondering if my nightmare would come to an end but I knew it was highly unlikely that it would come to an end.

Due to my passion to see her alive, I couldn't help but make a deal, but to be honest, it wasn't the wisest deal, and in the back of my mind, I felt Vulcan pushing against my conscience. I feared he might be in my head, but at the same time, I knew he was dealing with the backlash over Victory's remarks during the Superhero Conference in National City. From the media reports of the situation, Supergirl couldn't show up for the event, so Victory stood on the panel of heroes in her place. Superman, Static, Gotham Bat, Flash, and Victory sat on the panel and answered questions concerning the formation of the New Justice Corp. The media said Vulcan and Miss Sticky stayed away from the event because of the controversy over the Downing Chemical payout that he received. But since mid-October, Victory had been stepping in to fight crime around National City with the Guardian; they almost seemed like a team in their suits of armor. But when I watched the playback of when the woman in the audience said, "You wouldn't be shit without your suit, Victory. You're not even a real superhero."

I didn't think Victory was going to reply to the woman's verbal jab at first, but then when the announcer asked Superman a question, Victory interrupted and said, "Is Victory going to have to come down there and beat a bitch?" The entire room gasped and then went quiet. Immediately, Gotham Night nodded to Victory and she exited from the panel. Ten days had passed and nobody has seen Victory since the thirtieth of November.

It's not hard to understand why my emotions overruled all my logical thought and I went into the Libertine's domain with my guard down. I'm walking into a realm of madness and I'm doing this alone without the help of Vulcan or Orion. The whole time I drove to the public place I had an uneasy feeling in my stomach, and due to the possibility of seeing my wife, I could barely concentrate on the one task at hand: driving.

"Are you okay?" Vulcan asked telepathically. I'm not sure why I felt surprised by his mental intrusion, but I was. The fact that I hadn't heard from him in some time disturbed me, and now that I felt his mental telepathy, I feared he would find out about my meeting with the Libertines. It was good to hear his voice in my head, but I had to keep the dialogue between the technician and myself from him because of what it entailed: the eradication of the Vulcan. "I'm sensing a level of agitation in you," he said.

"I'm okay," I said telepathically. Instead of thinking about the Libertines, I thought about Graveyard Milk Shakes from Bang Bang Burgers. It was a chocolate shake with thick clumps of brownies in it and I enjoyed eating it with a spoon. "I'm just worried about Sue."

"Okay," he said telepathically, "I'm in the process of suspending Victory and taking her suit. It's hard because she's my closest friend and ally, but I must do this to maintain the public's trust."

I wanted to end communications with Vulcan for now because I feared I wouldn't be able to keep my plans from him with his powerful mind. The thought of shakes would only go so far because being a level three telepath, it was a step into madness to try to conceal my thoughts from a level ten telepath. If he wanted to, he had the ability to completely wreck my mind for the information, but as far as I know, he didn't go anywhere in my head where he wasn't welcomed. "I know it's hard to come down on your friend, but she did threaten to attack a citizen. As heroes, we sometimes have to face verbal abuse, but we just don't address it."

"It's true," he said as he paused for a moment. "She's good at it. Maybe a few months of suspension and that will be all she needs."

When Vulcan left my mind, I thought about the lessons of him in the old world, some hundreds of thousand years ago. In the old days, back when the gods were cruel, the children of Ptah and Ro'Dan, the Deceivers, made every attempt to kill the gods of old, but it didn't work; they unleashed a barrage of firepower against the Celestial Kingdom, but it barely made a dent in Ptah's floating empire. It only increased his anger and cruelty against his children, The Deceivers. In those days, the Deceivers had photon torpedos with the ability to destroy any modern battlecruiser, but when it came to Ptah's kingdom, it did nothing to penetrate its hull. Ptah always stayed one step ahead of his children, and even when Cronos Zeus designed the Glove of Darkness to hurt his firstborn, Ptah circumvented its magic and unleashed the Plague of Darkness on the Deceivers as a punishment for their betrayal; it caused a blight on the land for a thousand years decimating the population. Purposely, Cronos Zeus gave the Glove of Darkness to the humans and left the Deceivers to fight against Ptah with their minds but it wasn't a match at all. Ptah toyed with his children and made them bleed for their transgressions against the Celestial Kingdom. Unfortunately, my ancestors weren't powerful enough to take on a level ten telepath and he decimated the Deceiver's ranks during the Great Rebellion.

 _As a child, I feared the power of Ptah but I only knew him from the ancient books, but now that I know JJ holds his soul, I have to believe he's not the same Ptah of old. But at the end of the day, I know his mission will be to realign the verse and eradicate the waste. But who's the waste? That's the question I must ask myself._

According to the ancient archives of the Deceivers that I read in my youth, Ptah devised a cure for the unicorn plague that eviscerated the creatures on most planets in the new verse. It was written that he so loved the taste of the unicorns that he demanded Orion save the uninfected creatures by sending them to the Speed Force. Her mission took nearly one thousand years to complete, but when Ptah found a cure for the disease, he saved about two hundred unicorns on Earth, and over one hundred years after that, he had a population of two hundred thousand beasts. After Ptah committed suicide, the Deceivers eradicated the unicorn flocks on Earth as a way to disrespect everything about him.

The stories of how the Deceivers fought against Ptah in the old days stayed in my mind as I traveled to Metropolis Library to meet with the Deceivers, but at the same time, the generation of Deceivers who took power after Ptah's death prayed for his return because of Cronos Zeus rein; it was brutal according to Deceiver's history. According to the ancient texts, Cronos Zeus destroyed all edifices alluding to his son and banned the Deceivers from speaking his name. My people-at one point-believed Ptah to be their enemy, but they realized that he imbued them with knowledge of the verse after only ten years of Cronos Zeus' rule. Everything about the progenitor of the Deceivers was about seeking knowledge and improving the physical being, but when it came to Cronos Zeus, he hid knowledge and only allowed certain people to understand it. But when it came to humans, he kept them in complete darkness of everything, including the knowledge of fire.

In those days, according to Deceiver's ancient text, Orion returned to Earth after leaving for a substantial amount of time, and took pity upon the humans and lamented over the death of Ptah and Sekhmet. Immediately, she shielded the Celestial Kingdom against Cronos Zeus' reach. But when she realized Cronos Zeus purposely kept the humans and Deceivers in mental darkness, she summoned her step-son-Luciferous-to Earth. He was a strong-bodied god with a chiseled face and snakes for hair. And in the cover of darkness, his snakes slithered their way into the minds of men and taught them how to use fire, build huts, and make strong drinks from grapes. And even though the snakes taught the humans plenty of things, Cronos Zeus' influence was too much; he had the humans believing the snakes were evil and originated in a place called Hades.

Now, I stood in front of the Metropolis Library and I could feel the mind of the technician beating against my conscience. With all my powers, I deflected the mental intrusion and kept it from mind raping me. On the outside of the Library were two, large lion statues, and the only reason it caught my attention was because of the children in their mouths. It was a strange piece of art that looked odd in every way.

I walked into the Metropolis Library and had to veer to the left down a dark hallway, and when I got to the end of it, a red light encompassed my body. Then, after a few seconds, a voice said, "No physical weapons on the Deceiver." Suddenly, the walls slid away and I was magically in a room with a bluish tint with a large, round desk in the middle of it. There were statues in the four corners of the room of men with little boys next to them, and the words etched into the middle of the table were, "Libertine Council." Minutes later a body of men and women in silver mask entered the room, sat down, and then placed their hands firmly on the table; they had long flowing purple roses with fur collars. In the upper right side of the robe was the letter, "L." It looked like several women were in the group and they all sat in large chairs with numbers on them. The chairs were situated one through twelve in clockwise order.

"Welcome, Deceiver," one of the members at the front of the table said, "I'm the One." He pointed to the person on his left side and then said, "This is Two. You'll notice we all have numeric names in the order that we sit."

"Where's my wife?" I asked calmly.

One showed the palm of his right hand to me as a way to tell me to be quiet. "We have a mission for you, Deceiver," he said in a deep, melodious voice. "We are at the end of days when the gods have returned to Earth to wage war against humankind. Ptah has returned to our Earth to destroy humanity."

"How do you know that?" I asked with a raised voice. I, too, feared Ptah had returned to eliminate mankind, but I didn't want to make that call. The Deceivers always said when Ptah returned from his deep somber that he would correct the wrongs and eliminate the waste, even if it meant destroying the human race.

"Because that's why he always returns," he said calmly. "The human race had hundreds of thousands of years to be better, but we're not. We all break the laws of a modern-day society through sex trafficking, slavery, murder, and so on. We keep the masses ignorant for our benefit." He walked over to one of the statues in the corner of the room, and then said, "We're the lovers of children. We marry them and keep them enslaved to us in different cities. The Libertines sit at the top of society. We have the best and the brightest in our ranks."

"You're sick!" I exclaimed, "You're an organization of child molesters?"

Two laughed a little, and then said, "We're much more than that, Deceiver. We are the top of the food chain in this world." The Libertine stood to his feet, walked to the front of the room, and then said, "When the Deceivers fought with Ptah for all those centuries, the Libertines were learning the ways of the Deceivers. We learned to manipulate the masses by using sex, race, and every other difference within the human race."

I listened carefully to what the Libertine called Two said, and then I said, "The Deceivers left Earth because of Cronos Zeus' reign and left the humans to defend against the god. Where were the Libertines in all that?"

"Standing with our god," One said, "Cronos Zeus protected us against Lucifereous, one of the children of Ptah. When he came with his knowledge and wisdom for the masses, we devised a plan to undermine him. We made the multitude fear him, reject him, and embrace ignorance so we could easily manipulate them."

I laughed for a moment, and then I replied, "You do understand Ptah's death precipitated in the rise of evil?"

"And his death will ensure the Libertines remain a power structure," Two said, "And once we have control of the Glove of Darkness, we'll be able to stand against any foe."

Their goals scared me I must admit, but at the same time, I feared I would never see Sue again, and that scared me even more. But at the same time, I knew crossing Vulcan would result in an unprecedented backlash because his powers were immeasurable. He told me upon his return from the Speed Force that his snakes finally appeared on his head and now he had to make a conscious effort to conceal them. This meant his ancient powers returned and crippling him wouldn't be an easy feat. But since he disappeared from existence for two hundred thousand years, his death wouldn't be missed by the verse.

Seven stood to her feet, and from the way her robe fit, I knew she was a woman. Clearing her throat, she said, "We know the rocker, JJ, is Vulcan and he's had direct contact with you. He's hidden his finances in secure banks around the world, but he made a slip up when he stole the Red Raider suit from Lexcorp."

"What are you saying?" I asked.

"I'm basically saying he didn't disable one of the cameras in the suit," she said, "And that allowed me to see his face."

"I guess you caught him slipping," I said with some levity, but at the same time, I knew the identity of Seven by what she said. In my mind, I immediately thought Lena Luthor, the current owner of LexCorp and lead scientist. It would make sense that she was on the Libertine Council because of her vast wealth. "How do I kill Vulcan?" I asked.

The council laughed, and then Two said, "We're not going to kill him. We're going to put him to sleep."

"How are we going to do that?" I asked.

"With an ancient elixir called Ambrosia," Seven said, "We can mix the Ambrosia with another agent that will put him to sleep. Once we get him into the sleep chamber, we can put him on ice for an indefinite period of time."

One then said, "On December twenty third, we will be holding a Justice Corp party and also honoring Supergirl. Vulcan will be there and we want you to slip the Ambrosia in his drink.

"What if it doesn't work?" I asked.

"We'll kill you, Sue, and your son, Thong," Seven said, "It's either the Vulcan or your family."


	21. Chapter 21

Chapter Twenty One

December 20, 2019:

At my core, I only cared about my wife and didn't think hard on if I would carry out the Libertine's plan for Vulcan. In any case, my mind and body were tired because I felt him and the technician constantly trying to probe my mind, but I had fears I wasn't rational in my thinking. No matter how hard they tried to find out what was in my head, I kept up a mental diversion that I learned as a child. Often, Vulcan communicated with me through telepathy, and as far as I knew, he didn't make an effort to probe my mind, but lately, I've been extremely paranoid about it. Since the Libertines wanted to put him asleep like Sleeping Beauty, I kept thinking he'd eventually find out about the plan; it all made sense since his powers were like a fifth-dimensional being.

I don't know if Vulcan ever probed my mind and that was the truth; however, I know if I had his advanced powers, I would probe minds indiscriminately just to find out if somebody was trying to kill me. But when it came to Vulcan, he didn't seem concerned with people trying to encroach on his kingdom because he had powerful family running the Celestial Kingdom. It was talked about in the ancient text of the Deceivers. But the possibility he was sneaking into my head was there, and with the subterfuge, along with the science-it all made me feel uneasy about everything. My people, all the way back to the beginning, warred with Ptah and learned a series of mental tricks to preserve my people's secrets. My ancient ancestors did everything within their power to ensure the gods didn't obtain information about our weapons against them. In some ways, the Deceivers were like gods, but we were also mixed with human DNA. That might have been our downfall. But when Ptah committed suicide, we had to perfect our ability to keep Cronos Zeus from ravishing our minds. My ancient ancestors passed those abilities down to me, but at the same time, I could only keep up the mental diversions for so long. And even if Vulcan wasn't trying to mind rape me, I had to admit that I was exhausted from thinking he had.

With the deal I made with the Libertines, I no longer had to worry about the thugs trying to shoot me on sight because the Libertines paid Reverend Jenkins' salary. By nine o'clock in the morning, I opened Sue's Bistro and then went to Bang Bang Burgers for a Dead Man's Crotch and Finger Fries. It was nothing more than a hotdog, two fried cheese balls, and some french fries cut in the shape of fingers. The restaurant chain often received backlash about their menu items promoting cannibalism and mass murder, but I never heard about anybody wanting to eat people or shoot up a school because they ate a Bang Bang Burger. But when it came to the Graveyard Shakes, I still complained about them because of the soaring obesity rate in the country, but I had to be honest, I drank about two a week. At the same time, nobody forced me to buy the thick, malted shakes filled with brownies, but I'm not stopping today.

I sat in Bang Bang Burgers when I heard a voice in my head that I tried to ignore. I knew it was JJ, but I didn't want to answer it because I felt like a hypocrite. My thoughts exposed my heart with every breath I took, and I was having a hard time keeping the young god out of my head.

"I suspended Victory," JJ said telepathically, "I'm torn about this." He paused for a moment, and then said, "She didn't even complain. Just gave me her suit and then left."

Just at that moment, as I drank my Graveyard Shake, carefully, in my winter coat and looking out the window at some young men standing in front of the restaurant, I replied to JJ telepathically, and said, "She will recover." I kept my mind focused on just those words without wandering into areas that would reveal that the Libertines knew his identity. Mulling over the fact that JJ saved my wife and allowed me to meet his team of heroes, I felt disgusted. My actions say three things about me: I'm a small, petty, and a selfish man. But at the same time, even with his godlike powers, he couldn't circumvent Libertine tech and their ability to block his telepathic powers. He couldn't see inside their lair or break through their tech, so it fell upon me, a Deceiver, to find a solution.

"Maybe I'm too close to this," he said telepathically, "The Gotham Bat and Superman said suspending her would be in the best interest of the Justice Corp, but I'm not sure. Even Miss Sticky agreed she should be suspended."

"What did Supergirl say?" I asked. It seemed like a legitimate question since Guardian and Supergirl were his closest allies.

"She said it was best just to stay quiet about the incident and time would heal it," he said telepathically. "She wasn't on the side of suspension, but I acted hastily."

"Are you being honest with yourself?" I asked telepathically. "You suspended her because of fear she might get hurt or even killed."

For a moment, he went completely silent and then said telepathically, "I would call bullshit on that, but that's exactly the reason. She's in a billion-dollar suit with enough power to takeout the army. Her and Veo have access to nuclear missiles and enriched Kryptonite lasers."

"Isn't that too much power for one person?" I asked telepathically.

"There are two people in the suit, Nick," he said telepathically, "Veo is part of the suit and the deadly weapons can't be used without his say so."

Immediately, I knew JJ was so focused on his soldier, Victory, that he didn't have time to walk around in my mind and to be honest, I almost wanted him to know the Libertines wanted to trap him. But if the Libertines wanted to silence Vulcan then they might as well silence Supergirl and Superman too because they would want to know his whereabouts once he disappeared. In my mind, eliminating any one member of the Justice Corp would lead to a backlash and I'm not sure if I wanted any part of that. But who am I kidding, I'm not sure how far I would go to save my Sue. I did place her in the Lazarus Pit to bring her back to life and called on Vulcan to restore her soul. I created a monster, but she was my monster to create. My father always told me about the repercussions of a Deceiver marrying a human, but I did not listen. Now, I'm in a plot to trick a god into taking poison to put him asleep indefinitely, and if I succeed or fail, the aftermath will be my undoing.


	22. Chapter 22

Chapter Twenty Two

December 23, 2019:

I flew into National City under the cover of darkness around ten o'clock in the evening on December twenty-second and checked into the Whitmore Hotel on Main Street. Everything felt surreal for a moment as if I could touch time because time seemed to move in slow motion. If the Libertines had the power to take down a god-like Ptah, I knew they had to have otherworldly help and that scared me. Due to my Deceiver abilities, I could feel new minds, powerful minds creeping onto the scene. It took all my powers to keep the unwanted forces from entering my thoughts and seeing my true intentions. I was exhausted.

The aroma of peaches permeated throughout the hotel, and in the back of my mind, I thought about JJ due to the ancient text that spoke of the peaches aroma whenever Ptah was near. The hotel lobby was barely crowded with several hotel guests roaming about the immediate area. A woman, a kind of tall dark-skinned woman with silver hair walked past, and the reason I took note of her was because of her strong body and stern face. She looked right at me without a smile or a nod but kept moving toward the elevators. It was odd.

"Can you smell that?" One of the desk personnel at the hotel asked. "It smells like peaches. So rich in flavor. I love peaches."

But when I tried to focus and mentally remove myself from the idea that JJ was in the area, everything felt hazy for a moment. The tall black woman walked onto the middle elevator but looked back at me. It was just a quick glance, but a noticeable glance nonetheless. She smiled and I felt it, almost like she used telepathy to get my attention. Then, I could feel something penetrating my mind like an unwanted thought and I immediately put up my mental defenses. For a split second, I had to think closely if I took any drugs, but I didn't-or I couldn't remember and that bothered me the most. My mind felt like a battleground with two enemies competing for my attention and I couldn't trust anything.

It took me only a few minutes to check into my room, and as soon as the hotel clerk gave me my plastic room key, JJ walked up beside me, and then time sped back up. The mental attacks on my mind subsided and I began to see the world clearly. I'm not sure if he purposely slowed time or if I hallucinated it, but in any case, I felt uncomfortable with him on the scene because my mind was full of incriminating ideas and he had the power to read them all.

I was a tall man, and when it came to Deceivers, most stood above six-foot-five inches, and in JJ's human form, he was nearly seven feet tall. I was like a dwarf compared to him. But according to the text of old, Ptah had the ability to morph into any creature he wanted-short or tall. But at the same time, I wasn't sure how far in his apotheosis he was or if he had already reached the level of a god.

JJ, the young god, had grown even taller than the last time I saw him, and when it came to his muscular frame, he looked like the Ptah of old, the one in the drawings in my father's home in Pearl City. I believed him to be eighteen, but according to the ancient text, Ptah would inherit all his powers at the age of twenty-one; but at the same time, the ancient text had mistranslations and interpolations in them, so I just didn't know the facts.

He had a stern-looking face with sharp features, and as far as I could tell, he was ultra-serious. Wearing a long black jacket like a rockstar, he picked up my bags, and said, "Welcome to National City, Nick." I don't know if it was my imagination, but I thought he put stress on the ick part of my name. Carefully, I constantly tried to use mind-blocking techniques to keep the young god from detecting my inner thoughts, and when somebody entered into an unsuspecting mind, it was called mind rape.

"It has been a minute, JJ," I said with the best smile I could give, but at the same time, I sensed something was off about him. When he looked over at me, I wondered if he could sense my fake smile and insecurities. "You shouldn't carry my suitcase," I said, "You're a god."

He smirked ever so slightly. It almost seemed like a fake, half-smile, but I wasn't sure. "I'm just an ordinary person, for now, Nick," he said cheerfully. "I walk among the humans as a human so I can better understand their plight." He turned around with the suitcase in his right hand, and his hair turned into a slithering, large black snakes. It scared me at first, but when I wiped my eyes, his hair appeared normal. Immediately, I knew he was now a full god because the snakes were the sign that he developed all his powers. He then said, "Once we locate your wife, we must get her off the planet. It's the only way to keep her safe."

"But where will she go?" I asked as I kept a keen eye on his hair. In my younger years, my Deceiver instructors told me how the Gorgon's snakes changed society by whispering into the hearts of men throughout the galaxy. The snakes from Luciferous' head talked Eve into eating the apple in the Garden of Good and Evil. According to Deceiver history, Cronos Zeus grew special apples that had the ability to open up the human mind to knowledge but forbade human beings from consuming them.

"Vega Star," he said, "Orion has informed me that would be the safest place for her."

"But you can't even find her," I snapped. In the back of my mind, I was thinking the Libertines tricked the god of old, so he couldn't be as powerful as the legend stated. I'm not sure why I felt like challenging the god's powers, but with a basic thought, he could tear my body into pieces. "How can mere humans subvert your powers?" I asked him as he carried my suitcase.

He laughed. "My powers are growing daily, Nick," he said with a calm voice. "But Lexcorp built a device to disrupt telepathic wavelengths including mine. I'm not even sure if the mind-blocking device that keeps me from seeing into their lair is from this timeline." He paused for a moment, and then said, "It doesn't matter none. In time, I will figure out how to circumvent Lexcorp's tech. And when I do, I will make them all pay for their subterfuge."

We took the elevator to my floor and JJ remained virtually quiet while we rode in the rectangle box. For a moment, it was quiet, almost ominous. In any case, I felt uneasy about everything because I had made a deal with a bunch of devils to get my wife back and it weighed heavy on my soul.

My room was on the seventh floor of the large hotel, but we let a young woman with black shades into the elevator with us, the same woman I had seen earlier, on the third floor, and when she stepped into it, JJ cleared his throat as if to get my attention. I looked over at him and he squinted his eyes at the woman, and then I knew something wasn't right. I felt insecure about the whole situation because there were more players in the game than I truly realized. The Libertines possibly had agents all over National City and I didn't know any of them. I guess that was for the safety of the mission.

She was a tall woman, a woman with silver hair but dark skin and silver eyes. At first, I thought she was some kind of rocker like JJ, but I wasn't sure. In fact, I'm not sure why she stayed on my mind. She pressed the button to the seventh floor and then looked back at JJ, and then he let out an audible sigh, and I knew at that point she was an agent. It clicked in my mind.

"We're already going to the seventh floor," JJ said in a deep voice. The woman turned to him with a devious smile and then quickly back to her front, but the young god kept his eyes on her with a grimace on his visage. I looked at the back of her head for a moment when JJ said, "Pearl?" At the same time, the elevator doors slid open, and the woman turned to him with her right hand extended and she had on a Lantern ring. I'm not sure why I didn't see the green ring earlier but I also wasn't looking for it.

"Ptah!" She exclaimed. Firing a powerful green ray from the Lantern power ring, she hit the young god with the green energy and it threw him into the back wall of the elevator. He hit the wall so hard that I thought the force would break his back and it made an awful racket. The hair on his head turned into venomous black snakes that screamed, and by the time he climbed to his feet, three of the snakes left his head and chased the woman into the far corner of the hallway. She tried to run off, but his snakes caused her to lose balance, and then with a wave of his right hand, she slid down the hallway on her back to the base of his feet, and then the snakes crawled up his body and reattached to his head. He threw her against the ceiling and then slammed her to the floor. Reaching for her throat, she hit him with another powerful green ray but he blocked it with an electrical shield.

"You've had your apotheosis?" Pearl asked, "But you're only eighteen."

"That I have, Pearl," he said in a deep voice, "You're the reason for the futuristic tech in LexCorp!" He exclaimed. "Aren't you?"

"Who are you?" I asked in a defensive posture. "You're not of this world."

Flipping to her feet, she brandished her power ring to the young god and he shook his head in a shameful manner. "You've interfered with the timeline, Pearl," he said in a calm voice. With the power of his mind, he began to choke her, and then said, "I'm sensing you're working with Downing Chemical to hatch a plan against me, but it won't work."

Silver blood poured out of her nose and ears as he held her in his telekinesis grip, and then she struggled with her words. She let out a few screams as he continued to punish her with his powers. "I will always stand against the hypocrisy of the La family." He held her face to the ground and her screams hurt my ears. "Deceiver, you're siding with the god who oppressed your people for a thousand millennium. No matter his form, he's evil. He and his wife Orion have judged this world in my time, and the plague has already started. The human race is dying."

I listened to her for a moment, and then out of nowhere, she reached into her pants pocket, grabbed a percussion grenade, and threw it on the ground. It made such a powerful racket that it caused my ears to ring and I fell to the ground in pain. But when it came to JJ, it barely had an effect on him; however, he did let go of his telekinetic grip, and when he did, the woman disappeared in front of my face.


	23. Chapter 23

Chapter Twenty Three

Quickly, JJ exited the hotel and I sat in my room with a loud ringing in my ears from the grenade going off next to me. For a moment, I thought my ears were bleeding and I kept losing my balance at first, but I managed. Amazingly, the grenade didn't do any damage to the hallway and neither did Pearl's power ring. And it most likely had to do with JJ and his ability to contain explosions inside of a telekinetic bubble, a kind of forcefield made with his mind to contain a blast that would normally level a building.

The ringing in my ears was like a slight buzzing sound that annoyed me, and with the telepathic nudging against my mind, I thought I would go mad. Opening up my suitcase, I found a box of q-tips and stuck one in my ears to check for blood, but nothing appeared on the end of the small, white stick. Every time the ringing grew louder, I thought of kitties meowing to Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust" because that distraction was like a mental block to any mind pirate and it allowed me to focus on other things besides the pain.

It was a cozy little room with a queen-sized bed, mini-fridge, shower, and a work desk, but it reminded me of my college dorm room all those years ago. It was much more than I truly needed to carry out the mission for the Libertines. It has all the amenities that I needed. In the front of the room, set a mini-fridge with cold drinks on the inside and as I went to grab one, I saw a flash out the corner of my right eye. I watched the area closely because I felt the mind of the light bender in the room, but I didn't know the identity of the person. And as soon as I asked the person to reveal their identity, Pearl appeared in front of me. She was almost on top of me. It caught me off guard, and then caused me to stumble back onto the bed.

"What the hell!" I exclaimed. Pearl looked around the room for a moment, and then I asked, "What do you want from me?"

"I want you to do what you promised and give Ptah the poison," she snapped, "Now, we have to act quickly against, Ptah," she said with a grimace on her visage. "He's testing us. I can feel it. To think we can subvert his telepathic powers for too long is foolish. The quicker we act the better off we'll be." Putting on the white gloves that she removed from her left side pocket, she slid a vial of clear liquid out of the backpack she had on, and then said, "Give this Ambrosia to him and his wife during the gathering tonight. It's the only substance in the verse that will subdue them and allow us to capture the duo."

"What exactly will it do?" I asked as I looked over the clear liquid in the vial. The vial felt warm to the touch and I never quite understood why, but when it came to Ambrosia, it was the drink of the gods, the only thing that could weaken their powers. In the old books, the gods only drank the wicked imbibe in the presence of the immortals they trusted because of its ability to temper their powers for a short period of time. It sparkled against the light in the room but I could tell it was ominous.

"It'll allow for us to put him asleep," she said in a calm manner. "Once we get him and his wife out of the way, we'll be untouchable. With the help of the Libertines, we'll rule over humankind and turn this planet into an outpost for Oa." She paused for a moment, and then said, "Even the Guardians want this done because if Ptah moves through the verse without a leash, he'll bend it to his will and undermine the work of the Guardians."

"In the ancient text, it states clearly that Ptah opposes slavery in all its forms," I said calmly, "Isn't that the reason for the Great War?"

"Maybe so," she said with a grimace, "But that's the only way this universe works and I fight for what works."

After Pearl handed me the god subduing elixir, my heart felt heavy and I also felt fear at the same time; I tried my best to have a stern visage, but it was harder than usual. To cross a god, according to Deceiver lore, meant doom for my entire bloodline if the Libertines couldn't quell him. I'm not sure what made me think we had the power to restrain Ptah even if he wasn't at full strength. Not only was he a level ten telepath, but he also had the ability to turn into pure electricity, a power that allowed him to go undetected within the electrical pulses of the body. I feared his power.

"You seem weak-minded," Pearl exclaimed as she walked over to the room's window with her back to me. She then turned to me, and said, "You mess this up and your wife is dead, Deceiver. There are creatures across the galaxy who want to live free of Ptah's reign. He's been asleep for two hundred thousand years and it needs to stay that way."

Thinking, I looked at her with penetrating eyes and fear, and then asked, "What happens if we fail?"

She looked at me with a serious visage and said, "He'll unleash his wrath like the universe hasn't seen since the Great War."


End file.
